SOURCE: Baker, Phil. “A Small-Town Kid.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4813 (30 June 1995): 22.

In the following review, Baker notes the moralistic and sentimental subject matter in Rule of the Bone, deeming the novel “probably more commercial than [Banks's previous work.”]

The Bone wasn't always the Bone. Once he was Chapman “Chappie” Dorset, a small-town kid frequenting Plattsburgh shopping mall. After his Mom and his abusive step-dad kick him out for stealing the family's heirloom coin collection to buy weed, Chappie moves in with a biker gang above a video rental store, tolerated by the older guys because he keeps them in drugs. Presumed dead in a fire (at which he wasn't actually present, although one of the bikers dies trying to save him), he begins a new life. He steals a car with his friend Russ and they take off to stay with a pair of spindly, smack-head brothers who...