In Sinners Anonymous, good and evil are redefined outside of the law or traditional religious codes. Power, personal beliefs, and trauma guide choices, and others’ “sins” become a practical tool for exploitation and dominance. Somme Sketcher builds a world where conventional ethics seeking to avoid harm are impractical, and survival often requires tapping into one’s own darker impulses. Angelo Visconti and Rory Carter move through this landscape by relying on personal codes that develop inside the corruption around them. Often threatened by others, they’re forced to act with violence and manipulation to defend themselves and those they love, and the novel presents their actions as reasonable within the broader context of complex mafia power structures.

Angelo, nicknamed “Vicious” Visconti, becomes the clearest example of a criminal who judges others. He has a more corrupt method of operating than Rory, one that is based almost entirely on defending what is his—including his property, himself, and his few loved ones. He kills without hesitation, and Donatello recalls how Angelo once locked port workers in a shipping container and blew it up over a missing boat log. However, Angelo also helps run the Sinners Anonymous hotline, which he uses to find and punish people he considers worse than he is. He organizes hunting trips with his brothers to kill these sinners, participating in a vigilantism that is cathartic and removes other criminals from the world while committing more violent crimes himself. He kills a mafioso Max and his uncle Alberto without hesitation for abusing their power to threaten Rory, demonstrating his protective instincts toward her. Angelo steps outside legal systems and instead relies on his own strict code, turning violence into a form of justice that Rory grows to respect.

Rory frames her own darker impulses in a similar way. When she says, “My name is Rory Carter and I do bad things” (1), she claims her identity instead of apologizing for it. Her petty thefts and acts of damage push back against the structure that surrounds her, though she never commits any crime as severe as Angelo’s. Her plan to kill Alberto by pushing him off a cliff grows out of self-preservation instead of malice. Her behavior reflects the hostile world that shapes her, and the book presents her as someone responding to danger rather than seeking to harm. However, when she learns that the other Viscontis will try to start a “war” with them now over his actions, she says she’s ready, implying she’s ready to actively embrace a lifestyle more akin to Angelo’s. This mirrors how Angelo’s path circles back to power, as he only returned to the mafia fold in his efforts to defend Rory, actions that drive him to commit more criminal behavior. The ending shows that, in their world, someone who wants real influence or the ability to protect others must accept the corruption required to achieve that power. Furthermore, this quest for power is most effective when shaped and motivated by one’s own firm moral code.