The Game of Thirty Summary
William Kotzwinkle

The Game of Thirty Summary

One of the most basic aspects of the traditional novel is the manner in which the protagonist, who often represents specific values and virtues that a culture supports, grapples with forces which are assaulting the foundations of that culture. In The Game of Thirty, Kotzwinkle places Jimmy Mc-Shane — a man whose character has been formed by an earlier America — in the midst of the postmodern world, where his fundamental precepts and principles are tested and his adaptability becomes a crucial factor in his physical survival and the maintenance of his psychic stability. McShane is a man with considerable experience in the vagaries of human behavior, but the extremity of evil and the fragility of innocence that he encounters as he pursues a conscienceless killer, in response to the classic detective's obligation to unravel a mystery and set aright the moral imbalance, compel him to modify both...

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