Lionel Essrog is Brooklyns very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettes Disease drives him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St Vincents Home for Boys, he works for mobster Frank Minna. But when Frank is fatally stabbed and his widow skips town, Lionel attempts to untangle the threads of the case.