Book Learning: Growing Up and Raising Hell in a City of Magic and Murder

A boy all alone in the most brutal slum of an uncaring city does not have much of a chance in life.  One boy, though has learned from the savagery around him.  When he sees something that he absolutely must have, he uses the only means he knows to take it.  Bloody murder.  Will it be the thing gives him the tools he needs to survive and prosper in the violence and crushing poverty of the slum?