Grand Theft Auto IV (The Official Fan Novelization)

Prologue

   The American Dream can be a funny thing to many. Some believe it will bring them to the top of the world or bring them back up from the bottomless pits they can't crawl out of. Those who can't rise up stay in the unclean streets as bums on American soil.
   To make it in America, you must either get a small-time job and work your way from there. If you're desperately wanting to succeed in life faster, you go find dirty work. The criminal life in the United States can be a risky proposition to put yourself into.
   You got the delinquents, the drug dealers, and the prostitutes that walk the streets at night looking for a good time. Lowlifes that can't seem to get it straight. The ones with enough brains in this country are most of the gangs that succeed and are rewarded in the life of luxury and riches. Mob families never stay quiet if they go to war with each other, if so all the cops will have to pick up the mess and as soon as you know it, someone is going to prison.
   These certain people can be located in all the major places like Vice City, with their cocaine drug lords, Los Santos all sorts of gangs and crime bosses, Los Venturas with their casinos, and of course Liberty City, one of the worst places in the United States of America.
   Despite being called the worst place, lots of American citizens seek out to fix the city filled with crime almost 24 hours a day. Some of the biggest mob families live in this crummy place and involve themselves in dangerous situations just to make a quick thousand dollars from their boss. Though Liberty City might not be for everyone, the people who live day after day here striving to become a better version of themselves.
   The people overseas from Russia look at this city and see the glory of opportunity across the vast skylines. An Eastern European like Niko Bellic leaves his home on a ship after being in a war like no other in history, hoping to arrive in Liberty City so that he can live with his successful cousin Roman and learn how to live the American Dream. What the European didn't know was that the American dream had a price to pay and he was about to experience it for the first time of his life. Perhaps there's no such thing as, "The American Dream....."