Point of View

The novel employs a distinctive use of point of view by alternating between the perspectives of two peripheral characters, Dev and Nicky, while withholding the viewpoints of characters at the heart of the central action, such as Doll, Cillian, Gabe, and Sketch. This narrative choice is significant as it shifts the focus from the direct participants in the major events to those who are indirectly involved or impacted by them. By doing so, the novel explores how crime, violence, and moral compromise ripple through the lives of those on the fringes of the action. Dev and Nicky serve as lenses through which the reader experiences the unfolding events, and their points of view highlight themes of passivity, complicity, and vulnerability. Dev, a reclusive and emotionally troubled figure, is drawn into the criminal underworld largely due to his passivity and inability to resist. Nicky, on the...