"At twelve, Tolly Devlin witnesses his father's murder by four punks. As an adult, recently released from prison, driven by revenge, he single-mindedly tracks down the men who killed his father and who have worked their way up from hoods to leaders of a vice monopoly. The big business of crime, which in earlier noirs was held responsible for all of society's ills, here is synonymous with society. Tolly is the hero/criminal: hero, because he alone takes on the mob, infiltrating it while cooperating with the FBI, playing underworld against overworld and underscoring the similarities between the two sides of the law. Fuller strips away the moral categories of good and bad to reveal instead a sick society, where crime and business are logical extensions of the American ethic. His rapid, emphatic use of close-ups, dissolves and cuts serves as a shock treatment for the American public." Kathy Geritz