Milwaukee, 1932. The Great Depression is in full swing, Prohibition’s on its last legs, Al Capone’s cooling his heels in federal prison, and the private investigation business is shifting from labor disputes to more domestic affairs. Hicks McTaggart—a former strikebreaker turned gumshoe—thinks he’s found a stable niche. Then he gets handed what should be a simple case: track down a runaway heiress from a wealthy Wisconsin cheese dynasty and bring her home.
But nothing’s ever that easy. Before long, Hicks finds himself shanghaied onto an ocean liner, winding up in Hungary—a landlocked country with a language that might as well be Martian and enough pastry to put a beat cop into early retirement. Of the heiress? Not a trace.
What starts as a straightforward job turns into a globe-trotting mess involving Nazis, Soviet spies, British intelligence, swing bands, mystics, outlaw bikers, and enough trouble to bury a man alive. Hicks, entirely unqualified for this international circus and definitely not getting paid enough, stumbles through history he doesn’t understand, in a world shifting too fast to get a grip on.
The one advantage he’s got? It’s the dawn of the Big Band Era—and Hicks is one hell of a dancer.
Whether his Lindy Hop skills will be enough to get him back to Milwaukee—and to whatever "normal" might still mean—is another matter entirely.
Milwaukee, 1932. The Great Depression is in full swing, Prohibition’s on its last legs, Al Capone’s cooling his heels in federal prison, and the private investigation business is shifting from labor disputes to more domestic affairs. Hicks McTaggart—a former strikebreaker turned gumshoe—thinks he’s found a stable niche. Then he gets handed what should be a simple case: track down a runaway heiress from a wealthy Wisconsin cheese dynasty and bring her home.
But nothing’s ever that easy. Before long, Hicks finds himself shanghaied onto an ocean liner, winding up in Hungary—a landlocked country with a language that might as well be Martian and enough pastry to put a beat cop into early retirement. Of the heiress? Not a trace.
What starts as a straightforward job turns into a globe-trotting mess involving Nazis, Soviet spies, British intelligence, swing bands, mystics, outlaw bikers, and enough trouble to bury a man alive. Hicks, entirely unqualified for this international circus and definitely not getting paid enough, stumbles through history he doesn’t understand, in a world shifting too fast to get a grip on.
The one advantage he’s got? It’s the dawn of the Big Band Era—and Hicks is one hell of a dancer.
Whether his Lindy Hop skills will be enough to get him back to Milwaukee—and to whatever "normal" might still mean—is another matter entirely.
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