this book was one of the if not actually the best books i read this past year -- the review misses the wonderful spot-on dialogs of steve's cohorts in the petty criminal world -- this in itself makes it worth the read -- combine with the subversive humor and matter-of-fact courage of steve and buddies and you have a classic of underground litterature as good as if not better than william burroughs -- i was sufficiently impressed with this book that i got a book of veronica's and read it as well and for me he's the better writer not that she isn't good as well -- i envcourage who like hard boilled fiction or even sanual beckett to read this book