Garner is a comfortable writer. Invariably he tells a story that has both a beginning and an end and he uses a style that, while colourful, is devoid of artifice and pretentiousness. Often there is a narrator who speaks with a voice crackling with hard-earned experience. He is a regular guy, one who knows the way of the world. He may be soaked in cynicism and bitterness, nevertheless he is full of compassion for his fellow sufferers. Years ago he would have been in the thick of the story; now he is content to be a voyeur, watching as bullies and snobs get what's coming to them and the meek, bespectacled little guy over in the corner emerges as a hero.

Garner's world, which is almost exclusively urban, is filled with little people. Whether bartenders, clerks, mechanics; prostitutes, drunks, or murderers, the characters are diminished by the sordid...