Brooks’ Promise Boys centers around three young men, who, because of the color of their skin, live their lives under the premise of guilty until proven innocent. Never is this more the case than when the rigid and ruthless principal of their high school is found murdered and the three young men have no alibis, and all are perceived to have a motive for wanting Kenneth Moore dead. The irony of the whole situation is the school is supposed to be a way for disadvantaged young men to have a brighter future, and instead it more often than not sets them up for failure or even worse circumstances than what brought them there in the first place. Young people more often than not need for people to care and be invested in them to believe in themselves and succeed. After initially presuming that one of the other guys had to have killed more, the three band together along with other friends to figure out who the real killer is. I wish this had been a larger part of the book. A good part of it is dedicated to building backstory, and it doesn’t feel like all of it is necessary. I wish Brooks had spent more time bringing them together than as much time as he did showing how and why each could have committed the murder, when it feels like a safe bet none of them did. He does do a great job of showing how easy it is to make presumptions based on stereotypes, and the potential for how damaging that can be, from the smallest infraction to the reputation damaging accusations. There is one early part of the book that is in direct conflict with events that play out later, which could have been written differently to avoid that, but explaining what that is would be a major spoiler. A reader paying attention will see it after finishing the book.