There is nothing unusual about the barrel-organ man who walks into private detective Louie Knight's office. Apart from the fact that he has lost his memory. & his monkey is a former astronaut. & he is carrying a suitcase that he is too terrified to open. & he wants a murder investigated. The only thing unusual about the murder is that it took place a hundred years ago. & needs solving by the following week. Louie is too smart to take on such a case but also too broke to turn it down. Soon he is lost in a labyrinth of intrigue & terror tormented at every turn by a gallery of mad nuns gangsters & waifs & haunted by the loss of his girlfriend Myfanwy who has disappeared after being fed drugged raspberry ripple