To his disapppointment and defeat, The New York Graphic -- the city's most renowned shock-based tabloid daily -- has routinely rejected Virgil's work. But when Virgil and his friend Larry Onions rip off a local church, he gets the picture of a lifetime, a job at the Graphic, and a generous measure of trouble, leading to serious indiscretions that include (but aren't limited to): grave robbing, straining his neighbor's dog's feces for an inadvertently consumed diamond, widely circulating the work of a renowned "art terrorist", and being an FBI informant in a serial bombing case. Helping Virgil through his hard times is Marcy, HIV-positive porn-star girlfriend, whose wispy, hardened, tragic strength brings tenderness and humanity to Virgil's cold-blooded reality.

New York Graphic is a winningly fresh contribution to the noir genre: alternately hilarious, vulgar, touching, seriously disturbed -- and a delightfully heady read.