You might guess a novel of Brixton, drugs and crime would be a recital of gang violence and race politics. Yes, the life-on-the-street background is there, but from the start you are inside Dennis's head. It's his awareness of loving relationships that others are deprived of, his romantic longing for true love, and his agonising over taking revenge for his friend Noel's death, that make him much more than a two-dimensional badman.