An exhilirating novel of domestic terrorism in the gritty streets of 1980s New York from the National Book Awardfinalist and author of Straight Cut The New Yorker As a staff photographer at Bellevue hospital in Manhattan Clarence Dmitri Larkin is exposed to the fraying underbelly of New York City Drawn in by the stories of the sick the lost and the insane Larkins own dark impulses lead him through the streets of Brooklyns shadowy warehouse district Increasingly isolated from the world around him Larkin falls in with a disturbed cell of outcasts Their ringleader empowered by confused visions of grandeur and revolution launches an outlandish scheme to plant an atomic bomb in the catacombs under Times Square Narrated with unsettling plausibility Bells debut novel demonstrates the remarkable literary skill celebrated in his later novels such as Soldiers Joy and The Year of Silence With real brilliance full of fire Bell provides promise promise of his own talent and promise that young American writers are not all retreating from big subjects The New York Times Every sentence Bell writes is a joy His power is exhilarating The New Yorker