Ricky Gordon is 11 years old and in trouble constantly. The bullies at school are always after him, particularly their leader, Bugsie McCarthy. Set in a small American town in Maine, a town where everyone knows everyone else's business, the story centres around Ricky and his family's fight for normality after their horrifically violent past. His father was a drunk, a vicious, unhappy man, who physically and emotionally abused his wife and three children, and the story begins soon after his sudden death in a car accident, brought on by drink. The flashback descriptions of his actions, his unforgiveable words, the family's constant involvement with the police are vividly realistic. When anything bad happens in the town, the Gordons are suspected. It is against this background of violence and suspicion that Ricky gradulaly finds his answer to misery in running. Suspecting some of his father's violent tendencies in himself, he learns to train himself, using both his cosiderable physical skills and his mental abilities in maths - his other good subject. Gradually, as he earns the respect of the community, he is able to help his mother and younger siblings pull themselve out of the morass of problems that have held them down so long. A grittily realistic, superbly written book.