Games Pimps Play: Pimps, Players and Wives-in-Law

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

Games Pimps Play begins and ends with chapters that are laden with bland
white sociological theory, as befits a book that originated as an honors
thesis in 1983. The middle section is a meaty analysis of life on the
streets. In these chapters, the author, a former Toronto police officer,
focuses on juvenile prostitutes—how they were procured by their pimps,
how they were trained, what their working life is like. Highlighted in
his discussion of pimps is the fact that they do not participate in
soliciting potential clients, but rather spend much of their time
generating fear and establishing credibility on the street. The
penultimate chapter describes the responses of police and social service
agencies to the prostitution problem.

This fascinating book is not without flaws. First, the title is
misleading; the focus is on prostitutes, not pimps. Second, grammatical
and typographical errors abound. Another lapse: the book is described as
a qualitative analysis on the front and back covers, but as a quantitive
analysis on the title page.