Los Angeles is both the setting and the unifying force behind these 11 tales of crime, false hope, and down-and-out disillusionment. Knight writes primarily in the third person, past tense, usually from multiple viewpoints within each story. This narrative omniscience allows readers to experience events from different perspectives and heightens the effect when lives and choices inexorably come together in an ill-fated concatenation. Such interconnectedness is most evident in “Tip the Barkeep” and “White Horse,” tales in which a murderer and drug dealer take refuge from pursuers who have links to the bars they hole up in, and “Night Windows,” about a patsy framed for a homicide who happens to be known to the investigating officer. Two stories are told in the first person, present tense: “Mouth Bay,” in which a self-centered woman fails to make the life changes that would render her a fit parent, and “That Dreaded Undertow,” in which a fisherman turns his life around but is dragged back down by his past. These notions—the power of children to inspire rehabilitation and the difficulty of escaping one’s history—form common, contrasting threads throughout the volume, clashing most notably in “Bleeders Abound,” in which a taxi driver trying to make good picks up a fare linked to his gangland past. Knight employs realistic dialogue and an immersive, staccato-style prose that deals directly with life in all its seedy, sordid details. The characters who emerge may be unlikable but are very real and distinctly memorable, from the reclusive, would-be good Samaritan of “Vin Scully Eyes” to the aging party girl of “Full Bloom” and the rehabbed bartender (“I don’t drink”) of “Angels Live Here.” The last two are wistful vignettes of lives gone astray early and never corrected. The first tale is more plot-driven and emphasizes how wrong it is to shut out the world yet how letting it in can end badly. Indeed, few of these stories have happy endings. The collection’s tales work well together, and Knight’s writing will pull readers in—a kind of literary mugging that will leave them wiser and sadder. Noir enthusiasts will grant their somber approval.