In any nation, systems of hierarchies and norms endure, exerting expectations upon its citizens. The true test of a country’s health is how those individuals at the bottom of any given hierarchy experience daily life. Do nationwide structures allow for an existence with everyday dignity for those lowermost residents? Or does community cruelty crush them? And what of those who are not, in fact, the most stepped-upon in society, but whose aggrieved rage makes them imagine themselves so? This issue, Booked & Printed examines books whose characters commit crimes in the contexts of their corrosive environments, some sins perhaps more

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