A massive pile of severed human limbs appears in the parking lot of a vacant department store in a desolate small town. Some of the fingerprints on the severed arms belong to living people with all their appendages intact; others match no one on file. This sounds like a case for local weirdos John, David, and Amy, partly because the cops don’t want the headache and partly because David’s own arm is in the pile, despite an identical copy of it still being attached to his body. When a mysterious man then shows up at David’s home claiming to be in pursuit of an entity he calls “the Penetrator,” it seems clear the trio is in for a long weekend. The gang will also have to quell the panic that threatens to ensue, which could prompt the feds to try to wipe the whole town off the map (again). As such, contrary to whatever ugly rumors you may have heard, there are no giant crabs in this novel.

Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC. But there are rules: He cannot look inside the box. He cannot ask questions. He cannot tell anyone. They must leave immediately. He must leave all trackable devices behind. As these eccentric misfits hit the road, rumors spread on social media that the box is part of a carefully orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war. The truth promises to be even stranger and may change how you see the world.