As always, Hamill's forte is gritty realism—the street, bars, prisons, and the fights.

"I'm. on the ground, my back against a wall.

I hear rain, making a drumming sound and see the tall cop standing over me, blood leaking from his nose. The rain is hitting his rubber coat. There's a streetlight a hundred yards away, at the far end of the alley." The voice alternates between Bobby's straightforward first person, used for action in the present and for recollections of scenes in the same time frame but outside the main action, and second person, used mainly to relate Bobby's view of himself: "The place seemed strange now, and you felt more alone than ever." This gives the narrative a flat, distanced quality, and portrays him as a stony bystander, observing his own pain and confusion. The tone is moody and elegiac, reflecting Bobby's constant sense...