Description: Four people in contemporary Chicago become caught up in searching for the lost treasure of Benjamin Free. "Free Live Free", said the newspaper ad, and Jim Stubb, the out-of-work detective; Madame Serpentina, the occultist; Ozzie Barnes, the salesman; and Candy Garth, the generous and overweight prostitute, are brought together to live for a time in Free's old house, a house scheduled for demolition to make way for a highway. Free drops mysterious hints of his exile from his homeland, and of the lost key to his return. And so when the demolition occurs and Free disappears, the four make a compact to continue the search, that ultimately takes them far beyond their wildest dreams. This is character-driven science fiction at its best, by a writer about whom Ursula K. Le Guin said, "Wolfe is our Melville".

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