Of Good and Evil is a novel about violence in society—the hidden violence that suddenly reaches out to touch and terrify the ordinary citizen—and the forces arraigned against it.

The time is now. The action takes place in a single day and night. The focal point is the Hall of Justice—headquarters of a metropolitan police force. To this nerve center come the myriad impulses of conflict and tension, of greed, of brutality, of fear, that vibrate endlessly through a great city.

The anonymous man staging a spectacular suicide, the malevolent underworld baron plotting to squeeze the marrow from the city's bones, the psychopathic girl of fifteen who accuses two boys of rape, the pusher, the pimp, the murderer—each in turn acts out the demonic compulsions that strain the social fabric.

Facing them is the law, the hard-pressed, imperfect human beings who are its enforcers, and the man who is its protector—the judge, struggling to reconcile justice with compassion.