Review Detail

The plot of this book is quite strange, but I really enjoyed reading the story. Ed Kennedy drives a cab to earn money, a job he got by lying about his age, and plays cards with his three best friends, Ritchie, Marv and Audrey. He loves Audrey, but she does not want to love anyone; she prefers meaningless physical relationships to the pain of loving someone and the fear of loss. At the beginning of the book, the three friends are all stuck in monotonous, accomplishment-free lives without any motivation to change. After Ed helps stop a bank robbery mostly by accident, his life begins to change with the arrival of a playing card in his mailbox. The ace of diamonds has a list of addresses and times written on it. He discovers that each one is a mission to fulfill. For his journey in the book to be complete, he has to complete the challenges on all the aces and the joker. Ed grows as an individual because of this experience and so do his friends; this strange incident gives them back some momentum and desire for improvement. The ending of the book was a bit weak; I might have preferred not to have a resolution than to have the joker section go the way it did. The book points to the power of the human spirit and suggests that even the most mundane of us have the power to change the world and help people in both small and large ways.