Max Federman is an aspiring writer who has suddenly taken it into his noggin to write a trashy potboiler of a book about the rich and infamous to crash the best seller list. The only problem is he knows nothing about the rich or infamous. So, to appease the writer's credo of "write what you know," Max heads out on the road trip of his life albeit one that mostly involves boats, trains and planes. Come to think of it, there are only a couple of acutal roads at all. It's a series of unfortunate events that Max stumbles through, dealing with crazed serial killers, bizarre underworld criminals, revolutionary zealots and a swash-buckling kingdom, along with a series of sassy lassies. And Max jots it all down in his writer's journal and he is positive it'll be a best seller, if he lives to tell the tale.