One of the most underrated of American writers Madison Smartt Bell never seems to win any literary prizes but over the years he's written many very good and several outstanding works. This one is set in Baltimore and revolves mainly around two characters--a white child psychologist Devlin and a sad and reluctanly violent black drug dealer Trig. Devlin is also a black belt in Tae Kwan Do--something in which his daughter a high honor student in high school and heading for a prestigious college also excels. The owners of a Korean school that Devlin trains in want to franchise and they encourage to open up shop in a black neighborhood in Baltimore's inner city. His first students are all members of a drug gang that's in the initial stages of a war with another rival drug gang over a somewhat friendly fire killing of a young girl associated with that rival gang and which had been quickly followed by a revenge killing of one of its members. When Trig (from the second gang) shows up one day with his crew to also learn Tae Kwan Do tensions are high. These tensions are quickly difused by Devlin in-house but it never really lets up outside as bodies continue to fall. As Devlin's marraige becomes more and more strained and he battles with depression his daughter begins a relationship with Trig whose smaller gang is being whittled down. Devlin in the meanwhile is being badgered by the police and after a social call from Trig's grandmother tries to mediate between the two groups but it only gets another of Trig's men murdered. Eventually Devlin himself will be murdered--an act in which he saves his daughters life and Trig will go to prison for his drug dealing--after being arrested having made a hopeless attempt to save Devlin's life. In prison he meditates on the past using the memory of Devlin as a kind of inner conscience to converse with. There are some blemishes here IMO--particularly revolving around a childnapping by Devlin early on--it revolves around the girl killed by accident--it really streches credibility. Even so Bell is a very effective writer. He seems to inhabit peoples skins. The story is told from several narrative points of view--the white Devlin's voice contrasts sharply with the stylism of the black voices of Trig and another black girl Sharmane. And the point is not just that there are two kinds of voices but in the real gulf between the very different worlds that those voices come from--which are only occasionally bridged apart from the times when they are training in which the animostiy between the two rival factions and the racial divide between black and white more or less disappears. ( )