A Cult Hardboiled Noir Classic Of Crime, Punishment And The Search For A Meaningful Life, With An Introduction By Stuart Everstough And Vital Hard Rain Falling Roars Through Dim Western Streets Like An Articulate Hells Angel Looking For A Fight The New York Timeswhen Small-time Teenage Criminal Jack Levitt Becomes Friends With Billy Lancing, A Young Black Pool Hustler, Neither Imagines They Will Meet Again Years Later In St Quentin Prison Or That Only One Of Them Will Make It Out. But What Does Freedom Really Mean If You Cant Escape The Hand Life Has Always Dealt You? Don Carpenters Shocking, Poignant Novel Is A Story Of Crime, Punishment And Trying To Make Sense Of It All; Of Being Down, But Never Quite Out.