The Main, a Montreal slum, swarms with petty criminals, riffraff, immigrant Greeks, Hungarians, Jews, Germans, French, Chinese, gimpy vags and back-alley whores, men in drag, flabby go-go girls, damaged daughters, the old, the soiled, the failed—"the crawling, faceless Wad." Weeks of "pig weather, with its layers of zinc cloud, moist and icy, pressing down on the city," have held back the cleansing winter snow. Through this garble of garbage humanity and thick blanket of blues slouches Police Lieut. Claude LaPointe, 30 years on the force (and the street), fists deep in a shapeless, rumpled overcoat, checking alleys, padlocks on shops, hangers about and crafty cripples—a mirthless, leathery Jean Gabin padding through the lowest depths of Zola….

[A tale as grim and overcast as "The Main"] gives a view of life as relentlessly lopsided as "Pollyanna," and just as sentimental in favoring despair over rainbows. Trevanian … tells us...