Steve Monroe's debut novel, '57, Chicago, won't win any sensitivity awards, but it's a fast-moving, iconography-heavy piece of pulp sports fiction best summed up by a central character's simplistic but colorful proclamation—"Chicago: The Jews own it, the Micks run it, and the niggers live in it." The book works through a veritable checklist of racial epithets and stereotypes, as its tough-minded, foul-mouthed wops/ dagoes, hymies/kikes, niggers/shines/coons, and their associated quiff/cooze compete to see who can wring the most "juice" out of a highly anticipated heavyweight boxing match. Promoter Eddie "The Lip" Lipranski sees introverted boxer Junior "Hammer" Hamilton as his ticket to clearing an old debt to an increasingly dangerous syndicate heavy-hitter. Layoff bookie Al Kelly, having just taken a devastating financial hit trying to cover a basketball game after his support network mysteriously disappeared, is getting leaned on by the same syndicate man and his boss. Hamilton himself is blackmailed by a greasy, gold-toothed pimp straight out of a Pam Grier movie. Everybody around them has an angle or wants a cut, from the Illinois State Boxing Commission to the Mayor Of Bronzeville to the paraplegic cop who thinks the fight might lead him to a long-hated organized-crime boss. Monroe takes a cursory approach in zipping through his setup: He dutifully mentions a handful of Chicago landmarks—Lake Michigan, the el, the Loop, Clark Street—but only as isolated islands in an archipelago that never coheres into a recognizable city. He takes the same approach with his many characters, who don't stay in the limelight long enough to establish themselves as anything other than icons, but do tell entertaining tall tales along the way. The entire package is as brief, breezy, and atmospheric as an Elmore Leonard crime caper, with the boxing match itself as the caper. Readers won't learn much about Chicago in 1957 or now, but may pick up useful tips on making book, training for a boxing match, or surviving a syndicate crackdown. They may also learn a bit about effective marketing: Monroe sold '57, Chicago to Miramax as a book/screenplay package. Given the novel's crisp, tense, unchallenging effectiveness, a similarly iconographic movie seems inevitable.