Mitchell Fourchette is on a mission to retrieve his priceless, first-edition copy of The Old Man and the Sea, inscribed on the flyleaf by Papa Hemingway himself. He unearthed it at the bottom of a bin of castoffs at a thrift store in Anaheim, and then Helmet-Head, Mitchell's moped-driving book-scout competitor and nemesis, filched it. How, after an auspicious start at Hotchkiss and Yale, then a great job in advertising and a loving young family did Mitchell manage to lose it all and fall so far from grace? That is something that he can't help but contemplate while crusading through the dark recesses of Los Angeles as he struggles to retrieve his treasured book from a dishevelled, moped-driving Moriarty. 'Storytelling like T.C. Boyle, characters worthy of Robert Stone. Howard Marc Chesley creates compelling drama from everyday events, turning the life of an internet bookseller into a thriller. I couldn't stop reading.' David Webb Peoples, Writer of Blade Runner and Unforgiven