New York Times–Bestselling Author: From the famed comedian and magician, a very unusual crime novel filled with "smart-alecky, philosophical wit" ( Booklist, starred review). Twisting the buddy cop story upside down and inside out, Penn Jillette has created the most distinctive narrator to come along in fiction in many years: a sock monkey called Dickie. The sock monkey belongs to a New York City police diver who discovers the body of an old lover in the murky waters of the Hudson River and sets off with her best friend to find her killer. The story of their quest swerves and veers, takes off into philosophical riffs, occasionally stops to tell a side story, and references a treasure trove of 1970s and 1980s pop culture—in a surprising, intense, fascinating fiction debut. "Unlike anything I've ever read . . . seriously good writing." —Kaye Gibbons, award-winning author of Ellen Foster "Possibly the best original fiction I've read since A Confederacy of Dunces." —Kinky Friedman, author of Prisoner of Vandam Street