"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." — Neil Gaiman

It all started with a murder 20 years earlier. A ragpicker was found in a closet, stabbed in the back with a jewelled dagger—through an ace of spades! There's a reward for the solution to this old murder and Bill Chattuck, driver for MacWhorter's Motorized Circus, must get that reward—and prove the legitimacy of his girl, Melody—or they'll never get married! But first, there's the matter of that rare copy of Beowulf with a secret coded message in it, and the windingest road in the world, Old Twistibus, standing between Bill and happiness. It's a crazy contretemps only Harry Stephen Keeler could unravel.