These are out of context comments, they are drawn from those I made in an email book group discussion…

I agree with Carrie when she says that the book is seen through the eyes of a working class white man so it’s only reasonable that it shows more insight into the mind of that man rather than the minds of the black men in the book. We’re not in their heads.

When Maddy asked the black/white question in the first half of the book I couldn’t answer it because I couldn’t figure out which characters were black and which were white. I expect it was mentioned that the politicians were white but I didn’t pick up on it. The only character I’d remembered as black was Jenna from when Patrick joked that the reason they were after the cleaning lady for the theft of the documents was because she was black, and the only person I had sussed as white was Patrick, but I wasn’t really sure whether that was mentioned or if I was just extrapolating.

In the second half of the book it became a lot clearer to me who was black and who was white, but probably because I was watching for it by then. I have real trouble with books where this kind of thing matters because I tend to tune it all out. In the real world I don’t give a toss what colour someone’s skin is, so when someone tells me in a book I don’t listen either.

I’d say the book gave a better insight into Patrick’s mind than it did to the people in the gangs’ minds, or Angie’s mind, or Jenna’s mind, but I think that’s just first person writing for you.

No, it wasn’t justified to kill Socia. I don’t think killing people is justice. Put them through pain and misery and punishment, or something, killing them just seems to be giving them the easy way out.

If they’d needed to take justice into their own hands, I’d have been happier if they’d gone round to kick the * out of Paulson too. Probably not acceptable, but it didn’t seem very fair to kill one and leave the law to deal with the other; I’d rather people meted out their own brands of justice consistently if they’re going to do it.

I don’t like it when authors let the detectives kill the baddies unless the detectives are acting defensively in doing so. It drives me mad when the detective leaves someone to commit suicide too. I like to see justice done, one way or another, and death doesn’t strike me as justice.