Without a Candle, Onward

Abe Birch has been a drummer all his life, but he's never been successful. Things changed when, after a chance encounter with a bar buddy, he was recruited into Chylok and The Actual Movers--one of the biggest and most unique bands in the world.

But there's more to this band than just their music. The Actual Movers are more like an eccentric philosophy than a group of people, and their leader, Chylok, is a modern-day counterculture icon with more secrets than hit songs. After completing his first tour with the band, Abe finds himself back in his hometown of Milwaukee and unsure about what the future has in store. He loves his new job, but with all the incomprehensible things he witnessed on tour and the strange anti-climactic final show, he doesn't know whether he's still in the band, whether he has any friends left, or whether he's capable of returning to normal life. As he searches for answers, things rapidly spiral out of control. Everyone he knows seems to be leading a double life. He doesn't know who to trust or where to go, and he's drawn into a dark underworld for which Chylok and The Actual Movers' music might only be a front. But dark underworlds prefer to remain undisturbed, leading Abe into a maddening game of cat-and-mouse in which he mistakenly believes he is the cat.

High-end salons, money laundering, drugs and weapons trafficking, private islands, the fourth dimension, psychological experimentation, gambling with lives--all is fair game. But how can he take down one of the most beloved bands in the world? And then, why would he even want to when it's been the high-mark of his life to become a part of that band?

By the time Abe finally tracks down the one person who might be able to give him some answers, he's not sure he still wants to know.