The Ragged Edge: A Tale of Ward Life & Politics

The city has no mercy for those who hesitate. In the smoke-stained streets of early twentieth-century Philadelphia, young Larry Murphy learns this lesson in blood and ambition. When his estranged grandfather, Larry Murphy Sr., lies dying, the young man must navigate a web of family betrayal, political intrigue, and the cold calculations of the Motor Traction Company, which wants something from the Murphys and will play dirty to get it. Larry's friendships, his loyalty to his friend Johnnie Kerrigan, his interactions with porters and laborers in the city's forgotten quarters, all become colored by the ticking clock of his grandfather's final days. The will. The inheritance. The legacy. But more than property is at stake: it's about what Larry will become, what his name means, whether blood ties can ever be repaired or only betrayed again. McIntyre writes with the brutal precision of a man who knows these streets. The prose crackles with the particular violence and tenderness of neighborhoods where everyone is trying to get ahead and nobody will hand you anything.