Set mainly in Southern California during the recession of 1992, J. Ladd Zorn Jr.'s Car Trouble is a character-driven odyssey for anyone longing for page-turning action and dark humor to combat the insanity of the rat race. When his car burns to the ground, wallet and keys inside, twenty-one-year-old anti-hero Jim Crack is launched into an epic journey. He goes from being a Disneyland Goofy caught in a love triangle to jail for grand theft auto and from a reunion with his estranged father to running guns for a possible terrorist cell in Las Vegas. Jim's only hope of redemption seems to be following his alcoholic Mormon friend back to Utah, where he hopes to get clean and escape to a more natural way of life.