" [Fredric Brown is] my favorite writer of all time." -- Mickey Spillane " [Ed & Am are] an engaging pair of detectives . [Brown is] a real pro-- a natural storyteller." -- New York Times Ed Hunter and his Uncle Am have left Chicago and hit the road, traveling with the carnival through podunk Midwestern towns-- drinking, gambling, and fleecing the local rubes. Nineteen-year-old Ed is no closer to figuring out what he' s running from when a body turns up murdered on the midway. Next thing, he' s falling for the mercenary blonde showgirl who found the body. As more bodies pile up, Ed and Am are compelled to find the killer. But in the carney, there' s an unwritten code that makes investigating a crime as bad as, if not worse than, committing one.

In this sequel to Fredric Brown' s Edgar Award- winning debut, The Fabulous Clipjoint , trouble has a way of finding Ed and Am, no matter where they go. " [E]nough good people put Brown on their must-read lists and then become evangelists to keep his name alive on the same high shelf as Hammett, Thompson, Ross Macdonald, and other crime icons." -- Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune.