This is a tour through the underbelly of a city whose name conjures toughness, mortality and a little bedlam, caused by crime and calamity. The collection of short stories come as wisps of life flashing by outside the window of a fiction subway--subterranean echoes of people, their spice, degradation, self-interest, disasters.

Mafiosi, money lenders, bullies, prostitutes, hit men, lowlifes, weaklings. They raise questions.

Does a mafia don always get away with murderous brutality?
Does a bully always get his comeuppance?

To read the works of these 17 writers, you'd think the borough is suffering from a case of sociological devastation. Or, is it a fictitious undercurrent seeking the cool air of literary irony? Whatever, the reading is smooth, the characters vibrant, the cases amusing--when they're not dark, demeaning and twisted.

Are beautiful whores always salvageable and trustworthy?
How hard was it for the underworld creatures of Brooklyn to lose their Dodgers?
Can a Chinatown money lender outwit a little old lady?

Answers come. Not always pat or expected. It is, after all, a counter-culture, and the proof is in the spicy themes of despair and stinging realism that resonates in the creative vignettes from these harsh, disaffected writers.

Is there justice in Brooklyn?