My life in crime Book  summary / overview

The late 1690 and early 70s may be remembered as the years of the great bank and other armed robberies in Kenya. This is the true story of one of the participants in some of those robberies, John Kiriamiti. In raw and candid language, Kiriamiti tells the story of how he dropped out of secondary school when he was only fifteen years old, and for a time became a novice pickpocket, before graduating into crimes like car-breaking and ultimately into violent robbery. This spell-binding story takes the reader into the underworld of crime, and it depicts graphically the criminal's struggle for survival against the forces of law.

John Kiriamiti was imprisoned on 6 January 1971, after being convicted on a charge of committing robbery at Naivasha on 4 November 1970. Kiriamiti left Naivasha Maximum Security Prison in August 1984, just five months after the publication of this novel and those following which were a sensation with Kenyan youth in the late 1980s and '90s.

My life in crime Chapter 1

Before my life in crime, I never believed that a man or group of people could sit together and conspire to rob, blackmail, kidnap, murder or commit other acts of felony. But now I know.

 I am about thirty, as I write this book. I was born on 14th February 1950 and I was imprisoned on 6th January 1971. So eight of those years have been wasted in prison. I still have others ahead of me. The judge who sentenced me knew exactly what he was doing. I always think in his life, he had never heard of the word mercy, and if he had, he did not care what the hell it meant.

 I was born to a relatively well-to-do family. My father, Albert Kiriamiti, and my mother, Anne Wanjiru, were teachers, and therefore in my youth, I was well provided for. I completed my primary education in Thuita School. Thuita School is in Murang’a, about fifteen miles from the town. In the lower primary my mother was one of the teachers and I’ll say I never enjoyed it because she used to beat me so hard that I often thought of escaping from school. As a mother, she was very sweet but I never brought myself to believe that she was the same woman when we went to school. When I went to the upper primary, I was glad to know that I would no longer be in her class.

 In 1963 after I had passed my K.A.P.E. I went to St Mary’s Secondary School in Murang’a town. I never liked the school and before the end of my first year, I applied for a place at New Nairobi High School, later renamed St. Mark’s High School. I did not care what kind of a school it was, all I wanted was to be in Nairobi. If only I knew Nairobi would turn me into a helpless person I would have hated the look of it for good as I now do. My brother Sammy who had caught up with me in primary school was also in Nairobi, at the Prince of Wales School. He was a boarder but I was a day student, so mother took me to stay with her brother in Bahati.

 After two years in secondary school, I did my K.J.S.E. and got good results, I did not want to go back to school but since I did not have anything else to do, I was forced by circumstances to go back. In 1965, before the end of the third year, I was expelled from school for taking part in a strike. I was the ring leader and so I was expelled with my followers. I never reported this to my parents, since I needed the money they gave me for school fees and the daily bus fare I got from my uncle. I would therefore wake up early as usual, taking my bag and busfare, and I would go to town. Sometimes I was given money to eat out and sometimes I would go home for lunch.

 It would have worked out all right, or so I thought, if my brother Sammy had not interfered. I think he became jealous of the fact that I was fitting myself better with my school fees. I have told you of that part of my uncle since I always think that it was the cause of all my troubles. I was then used to town life, going from this nightclub to the other and I was sure there was nothing better in life except may be the movies. I do not know even today how my brother came to know about all this but he knew. He wrote home and informed my parents without my knowledge. They must have written to my uncle to tell him they would come, for as I came to work out later, he knew they were coming. My aunt was not aware for she would have told me since we were on very good terms. She had arrived a week before my parents.

 One bright Saturday morning, my uncle told me not to go out to town. He said he would come back soon and wanted a word with me. I should have guessed then but I didn’t. At about twelve my mother arrived, at four o’clock my father arrived with my brother Sammy. I was not surprised to see them for they used to make such visits at least once every month. In the evening when we had all taken our supper, my father started. We were all seated around the table discussing one thing or other. He said, ‘How are you doing in school young boys?’ I said I was doing well. Brother Sammy said he was doing well too.

 ‘You look very bright these days Jack ...

My life in crime Book  theme

What is the theme of my life in crime? Morality.   

My Life in Crime grapples with the concept of morality, particularly in the form of characters like Jack Zollo who commit crimes in order to survive.

My life in crime full movie

John Kiriamiti's bestseller 'My Life in Crime' made into a movie

Book details

• Format Paperback
• Pages234 pages
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN109966461922
• ISBN139789966461926