Spleen, the novel's hero (a man about as decisive as Hamlet), falls in love with The Sneering Brunette and is pulled into an intrigue that involves a psychotic hit man who eats live pigeons, a snitch named The Fag With No Eyebrows, a reformed snitch named Billy Verite, and two crooked policemen, Stratton and his partner, the black undercover cop in the white city. The plot that unfolds is a dance with the absurd, its wisdom coming from B-movie actors and philosophical taxi drivers, all written with a love and affection for a people and a side of town that are hopelessly without either.