Griffin's characters are seldom beset by world-weariness, universal questions of truth or justice, or extended psychological angst. But there are, in this series, perhaps more than in the other two series, "dirty" characters.

Griffin paints Gallagher, who shot Dutch Moffitt, as a piece of flotsam in the human tide; a flat character, he is made even more flat because Griffin does not do with him what he does with other characters — surround them with the description and dialogue. We see him described in terms of dirt, despair, and sordidness, and then he is dead soon after. Peter Wohl, on the other hand, one of the central protagonists, is a classic Griffin character — uniformly interesting, honorable (yet flexible), and (seemingly) irresistible to women. Louise Dutton, who is drawn to Peter Wohl, is a professional person, a newscaster, caught up in crimes she has no control over &mdash...