"In Their Ruin" opens in the colorful, parochial Chicago suburb of Cicero, beginning in the late 1940's when the remnants of the gang once led by Al Capone still existed and ethnic prejudices colored people's opinions. Chester, the Stone family's troubled father, is a bookie as well as a mathematical savant, and his brother is a hitman. Gladys, the mother, is from South Dakota and her family is equally influential in the development of the three children--brothers--...