Kiriamiti evaded the Kenyan police for all the crimes he committed until he was arrested in November 1970 on the eve of his wedding.

[3][4] Young John Kiriamiti is kicked out of secondary school and his family orders him to return to his rural hometown of Thuita.

He does not stay for long though, eventually making his way back to Nairobi, where he becomes a pickpocket under the alias Jack Zollo.

[5] Jack becomes involved in his first "big job" when asked by his friend Captain Ngugi to be an accomplice in robbing a white man.

While out one day after returning to Nairobi, Jack picks up a lost student ID and becomes enamored with the girl pictured, Miriam Nyambui.

The two spend a couple of days planning the heist and Jack becomes nervous because he knows he will have to use his gun for the first time.

He returns home, where Milly asks that they finally marry, but Jack refuses, saying that he must instead flee the country for no less than six months.

Jack, knowing that his fingerprints will incriminate him, decides to take a razor to his hands and peels off the skin.

Jack flees the airport and makes his way via cab and foot to the town center, where he offered help by a shop owner.

Jack takes a two-month break from jobs, but then becomes involved in another that he hopes will result in enough money that he can spoil Milly and retire from being a criminal.

[16] Milly and Jack decide to finally marry, and the two make preparations for the ceremony, which is to take place in Thuita.

Although Zollo blatantly commits crimes that go against what a legal system would deem "moral," he tends to be regarded as heroic by the reader and those around him in the narrative context.

[19] Kiriamiti renders his quasi-autobiographical character in My Life in Crime likable and sincere by writing the book as a first-person confessional in which he admits to his transgressions that led his reformation.

This highly personal writing style effectively maneuvers the reader into complicity with and understanding of Zollo's crimes, rather than harsh judgment.

[20] Kiriamiti situates a majority of the events in his narrative in postcolonial Nairobi, which, following Kenya's independence in 1963 from British rule, experienced an influx of native African inhabitants.

Prior to independence, the British cast Kenyans during colonial times as the lowest social strata, relegated to living as laborers and minimum-wage workers in the poorest parts of Nairobi.

Thus, the city is, for Zollo, a place of opportunity where he and his fellow criminals make regular citizens fearful of being victims of crime.