Edgar Rice Burroughs first gained literary acclaim with fantastical stories set in far-flung locales such as remote jungle civilizations and the planet Mars. He makes a detour into gritty urban realism in this hard-boiled novel that starts out on the mean streets of Chicago. Billy Byrne is a streetwise hustler who's down on his luck -- but before long, things take a sudden turn toward unbelievably bad. Can Billy rise above the adversity and get his act together?