C.W (Chauncey Wayne) Sughrue

Sughrue is the novel's central character and narrator, a hard-boiled private investigator in the novelistic tradition of Sam Spade, Mike Hammer, and other such characters. Like his literary counterparts, Sughrue has weaknesses for alcohol and beautiful women, simmering anger towards injustice, a flexible sense of morality, an ironic sense of humor, a tendency towards violence, a sharp mind, and a deeply cynical regard for the world and the people in it. Sughrue also has a certain sense of self-awareness that in many ways runs deeper in him than in other such characters—he knows and understands his weaknesses, and even has a clear sense of why they're such a driving, dominant part of him (e.g., his volatile history with his wayward father, with the army in Vietnam, and with women). He also, however, lacks the willpower and/or desire to stand up...