Mike Tyson, sitting on his new Rolls Royce, visits friends in Brownsville in 1987. Lori Grinker/Contact Press Images. More remarkable, in Grinker’s recollection, was an encounter on the drive out.

In the “Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson,” New York Times best-selling author Mark Kriegel tells the story of one of the greatest boxers of all time. Kreigel, who previously authored ...