Abandon Hope

How does a fourteen-year-old boy cope with witnessing a murder, handle having a rigid father with a notorious past, understand a mother whose life before his birth is a mystery, seek favor with a red-headed girl for whom he pines, befriend a "pig" of a boy who mocks him, converse with the town drunk who knows more than others suspect, and put all these puzzle pieces together to make sense of how Jim Darby, who kills indiscriminately and terrorizes the town of Abandon Hope, fit in the puzzle's picture ?