The new novel from Thomas Pynchon bestselling and award-winning author of Gravity's Rainbow
The Crying of Lot 49 Vineland and Inherent Vice . “A masterpiece.” — The Telegraph
“Bonkers and brilliant fun.” — The Washington Post “Late Pynchon at his finest. Dark as a
vampire’s pocket light-fingered as a jewel thief Shadow Ticket capers across the page with
breezy baggy-pants assurance — and then pauses on its way down the fire escape just long
enough to crack your heart open.” — Los Angeles Times Milwaukee 1932 the Great Depression
going full blast repeal of Prohibition just around the corner Al Capone in the federal pen
the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more
domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart a onetime strikebreaker turned private eye thinks he’s found
job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case locating and bringing
back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who’s taken a mind to go wandering. Before he
knows it he’s been shanghaied onto a transoceanic liner ending up eventually in Hungary where
there’s no shoreline a language from some other planet and enough pastry to see any cop well
into retirement—and of course no sign of the runaway heiress he’s supposed to be chasing. By
the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself also entangled with Nazis Soviet
agents British counterspies swing musicians practitioners of the paranormal outlaw
motorcyclists and the troubles that come with each of them none of which Hicks is qualified
forget about being paid to deal with. Surrounded by history he has no grasp on and can’t see
his way around in or out of the only bright side for Hicks is it’s the dawn of the Big Band
Era and as it happens he’s a pretty good dancer. Whether this will be enough to allow him
somehow to Lindy-hop his way back again to Milwaukee and the normal world which may no longer
exist is another question.
