As in his earlier novels, Bell uses an ensemble of people whose behavior becomes comprehensible as they reflect, primarily in flashbacks, upon their personal histories. Thus, although one level of the plot involves their current interactions with each other and with the minor characters, the reader comes to understand the actions of the major characters only as they gradually reveal the secrets of their pasts. In Save Me, Joe Louis these characters are Macrae, Charlie, Porter, and Lacy. After a "Prologue" which introduces the principal female character, Lacy, and suggests her importance in Macrae's life, "Part 1: Hell's Kitchen" opens with the first encounter between Macrae and Charlie and recounts their initial successes as small-time criminals who force their victims to withdraw the maximum amount from bank card machines; in "Part 2: Charm City," these two muggers meet Porter, who becomes their wheel-man as the violence of their crime escalates...