He was a flashy cocaine dealer known as Money Rock. Now he’s a new man.

Belton “Money Rock” Platt was a charismatic young drug dealer in Charlotte in the 1980s before he spent more than 20 years in prison. Pam Kelley of The Charlotte Observer covered one of his trials, interviewed him in prison and then reconnected with him and his family years later.

Her compelling book, “Money Rock: A Family’s Story of Cocaine, Race, and Ambition in the New South,” will be released next week. It’s been called “a New South version of ‘The Wire.’”

Kelley and Platt, who was released from prison in 2010, will speak at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh’s North Hills next Thursday, Sept. 27, at 7 p.m.

Q: You first crossed paths with drug dealer Belton Platt in the 1980s while reporting for the Observer. Thirty years later, you’ve written a book about him. What made you think there was a good story to tell about him?

Kelley: When a man who was one of Charlotte’s flashiest cocaine dealers wants to tell his story, you listen. I wrote a series for the Observer in 2013 focused mostly on Platt and his family. I decided I had a book after I came to understand that his story could also be a narrative about black poverty and Charlotte’s Jim Crow past. Every New South city, including Raleigh, has some version of this narrative.

Q: What made Platt a successful cocaine dealer?

Kelley: Exceptional people skills, attention to detail, a quick math mind. Today you’d say he created a valuable brand. He was a stickler for quality control, making sure guys who sold for him didn’t dilute the coke by cutting it. And he earned a reputation for generosity, helping people when they needed money or groceries.

Q: Why did Platt become a cocaine businessman and not run a legal business?

Kelley: He was young and had already built a small janitorial business, but he wanted to get rich. That’s hard when you’re scrubbing floors at Hardee’s restaurants. His father, a small-time dealer, gave him the idea. For a time, by tithing to a church and helping people, he managed to ignore the damage he was causing.

Q: Platt served more than 20 years in prison, where he became a positive force. He earned a community college degree, tutored other inmates and led prayer groups. Why do you think he thrived in prison?

Kelley: He’d decided to go straight by the time he got to federal prison in 1990. When inmates find God, conversion is sometimes temporary. But Platt’s was real. And he’d always loved helping people. That was part of his personality, even when he was Money Rock.

Q: Your book is about more than Platt’s story. It’s also a social history of Charlotte. What does Platt’s story say about the Charlotte of the last 30 years or so?

Kelley: Charlotte, with its big-city traffic, professional sports and bustling airport, is so different than the town I moved to in 1981. But in important ways, it hasn’t changed at all. Its housing still reflects the segregation that government policies created decades ago. Its school system, once touted for successful integration, re-segregated after a federal judge ended court-ordered busing in 1999. The poverty rate for black people is much higher than for whites, and Charlotte ranked last out of 50 large cities in a recent economic mobility study. The systemic racism that helped shape the destinies of Platt and his family is still shaping destinies. But Charlotte has at least begun to recognize this. That’s a start.