A primary social concern in Even the Wicked is people who profit from other people's dying from AIDS, specifically a practice called "viaticum." With this practice, people can buy up an AIDS patient's life insurance policy, gambling on the patient's dying soon and producing a profit for the investor of twentyfive percent or more. The patient is paid substantially less than the face value of the policy by the insurance company.

With the payoff, the patient can pay medical expenses and not be destitute when he or she can no longer work.

The detective Matt Scudder investigates the murder of an AIDS patient who is a friend of Ginnie's, a woman Scudder knows from Alcoholics Anonymous.

Scudder investigates the murder for her as a favor, so that the victim Byron Leopold and his death are not written off by the overworked police. The police give attention...