New York City appears as the setting of the psychological thriller the narrator reads in bed, a city that gives the story both its noirish atmosphere and its contrast between violence and cultural aspiration. Its streets and institutions frame a killer who plans murder while imagining that he might still become someone else.

Setting and Atmosphere

The thriller is described as unfolding in the seamy, noirish world of 1970s New York. The city is not presented as a neutral backdrop: its urban milieu surrounds the killer’s private resentments and plans, while its cultural institutions offer a life he feels excluded from. The narrator encounters this setting through a compressed account of the novel rather than through a full retelling of its plot.

Cultural Landmarks and Aspirations

At summer dusk, the killer spends time alone at Lincoln Center, where the plaza’s central fountain throws rainbows through its jets and crowds stream toward performances. He watches them with envy: attending such events is not part of his experience, and he struggles to picture himself doing so. Yet he fantasizes about acquiring more culture, and later sneaks into classes at Columbia University. These places give concrete shape to his wish for self-improvement, a wish the narrator finds capable of stirring sympathy without making the killer likable.

The City as a Setting for Violence

The narrative also connects New York City to the killer’s escalating violence. After a dance class, he stalks a fellow student to his Brooklyn home and kills him; on another occasion, he impulsively strangles a college student after having sex with her in Riverside Park. The account says that four homicides have been committed by this point, while police have failed to connect them. Against the cultural promise represented by Lincoln Center and Columbia, these killings expose the city’s double function in the thriller: it offers the killer an imagined route toward a fuller life even as it becomes the setting for his brutality.