Buddy Chinn, a deadbeat Los Angelino living in the shadow of doomed Hollywood Park meets a bigtime book collector and gets a proposition. Find a unique and long-lost manuscript written by your deceased beat poet dad: Succeed and receive a hundred grand. Fail? It doesn't bear thinking about. Enlisting the help of an English comic dealer and poker player, the two men search the country and beyond, avoiding the attentions of hooligans, gangsters and a gorgeous gang boss with a thing for big guys. Like Buddy. Will they find the merchandise? Or will they end up underneath a flyover holding up the Interstate. Thriller. Chase book. Black Comedy. Philosophy. You read it. You call it.