Skintight is the second novel in a trilogy of crime stories set in the downtown Cincinnati neighborhoods of the West End and Over-the-Rhine. These are poor, mostly black areas that have been experiencing gentrification and redevelopment. They are also experiencing violence related to drug dealing, today mostly heroin use. Customers are mostly rural or surburban whites, while dealers are mostly urban blacks. Skintight tells the story of Ray King, whom we met in Suffer the Little Children, trying to keep an Over-the-Rhine youth, LeSean davis, from patterning his father's descent into crime.