230 pages
English language
Published Jan. 5, 2016
Tancred Palmieri, a thief with elegant and erudite tastes, meets Willow Azarian, an aging heroin addict. She reveals to Tancred that her very wealthy father has recently passed away, leaving each of his five children a mysterious object that provides one clue to the whereabouts of a large inheritance. Willow enlists Tancred to steal these objects from her siblings and solve the puzzle. As Tancred tracks down the treasure, he must enlist the help of Alexander von Wurfel, esteemed copyist, and fend off Willow's heroin dealers, a young albino named "Nigger" Colby and his sidekick, Sigismund "Freud" Luxemburg, a club-footed psychopath, both of whom are eager to get their paws on this supposed pot of gold. And he must mislead Detective Daniel Mandelshtam, his most adored friend.
Disguised as a puzzle book, or a crime caper, this is really a book about how to live an ethical life. In order for that to even be possible, a character named Freud has to be eliminated. In the end, perhaps this quote sums it up: "I believe we do good or evil indiscriminately because we haven't a vantage from which to judge our actions before we've committed to them."
