No one is more surprised than Lem Altick when it turns out he's actually
good at peddling encyclopedias door to door. He hates the predatory
world of sales, but he needs the money to pay for college. Then things
go horribly wrong. In a sweltering trailer in rural Florida, a couple
Lem has spent hours pitching to is shot dead before his eyes, and the
unassuming young man is suddenly pulled into the dark world of
conspiracy and murder. Not just murder: assassination--or so claims the
killer, the mysterious and strangely charismatic Melford Kean, who has
struck without remorse and with remarkable good cheer. But the
self-styled ethical assassin hadn't planned on a witness, and so he
makes Lem a deal: Stay quiet and there will be no problems. Go to the
police and take the fall.
Before Lem can decide, he is drawn against his will into the realm of
the assassin, a post-Marxist intellectual with whom he forms an unlikely
(and perhaps unwise) friendship. The ethical assassin could be a
charming sociopath, eco-activist, or vigilante for social justice. Lem
isn't sure what is motivating Melford, but Lem realizes that to save
himself, he must unravel the mystery of why the assassinations have
occurred. To do so, he descends deeper into a bizarre world he never
knew existed, where a group of desperate schemers are involved in a plot
that could keep Lem from leaving town alive.
