Grant is an angry guy with a curiously attractive personality and a coterie of bright, artistic friends. He's used his good looks and his accomplishments, and the accomplishments of those friends, to get by while he works hauling stolen goods for his gangster uncle. He carries dark secrets that have caused his life to go off the rails. Grant is about as lost as a man can get, adept at making wrong choices. But when he finally faces his explosive moment of truth, something extraordinary happens.

Saint John of the Five Boroughs is beautifully turned--a stunning and layered novel about the effects of violence, both personal and cultural, on its characters' lives. It's about the way violence twists character, but also about the possibilities for redemption and change, for achieving a kind of personal grace. Edward Falco once again proves to be a master of urgency and suspense, of events careening out of control, as he brilliantly explores why we make the choices we make-both the ones that threaten to destroy our lives, and those choices that might save us.

Edward Falco grew up in Brooklyn and teaches at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he is director of the MFA program in Creative Writing. He is the prize-winning author of several books including his new and selected stories, Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha and, most recently, the highly acclaimed novel Wolf Point.