Shadow Ticket

Shadow Ticket is a 2025 novel by Thomas Pynchon. A postmodern noir story, the novel explores the interwar period in the United States and Europe as a private investigator is tasked with tracking down the daughter of Bruno Airmont, the so-called Al Capone of Cheese, who has run away with a clarinet player. Shadow Ticket is Pynchon’s ninth novel and follows a 12-year hiatus since Bleeding Edge in 2013. 

This guide uses the 2025 Penguin Random House edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of addiction, racism, and religious discrimination.

Plot Summary

Shadow Ticket begins in Milwaukee in 1932, at a time when Prohibition is on the cusp of repeal and organized crime is running rampant in Chicago. Hicks McTaggart is a former strike breaker who now works as a private detective for the Unamalgamated Ops detective agency, or U-Ops. Hicks was raised by his Uncle Lefty and Aunt Peony after his parents split up, though he struck out as soon as he could to find a job. Hicks has settled into a familiar routine as a detective, and he seeks peace in reading a printed lecture course in “Oriental Attitude,” even though he does not understand the content. One day, a bomb explodes in Milwaukee, and Hicks is dragged into the chaos that follows.

Though the bomb bears the hallmarks of the local Mafia, Hicks comes to suspect that someone else is responsible. He makes inquiries around town, and Hicks speaks with locals from many different backgrounds. At the same time, he is haunted by the memory of his time as a strikebreaker, when he nearly killed a young left-wing protestor. Just as he was about to swing his weapon, the weapon vanished from his hand. Hicks is left to wonder how many others he might have killed; this incident prompted him to make a switch to the less lucrative profession of private detective. When he brings up the incident with his boss, Boynt Crosstown, he is told to discuss the matter with Thessalie Wayward, a colleague and former mentalist. She suggests to Hicks that his weapon “asported” and “apported,” a paranormal phenomenon in which objects disappear and reappear.

Hick’s friend Stuffy Keegan, the owner of the truck under which the bomb was placed, skips town on a repurposed German submarine which is now operated by a crew of smugglers. While visiting his uncle, Hicks is taken to a bowling alley where a crew of fascists is beginning to organize. Lefty warns Hicks that Adolf Hitler is a rising force in Germany. Around this time, Hicks is given an assignment. Daphne Airmont is the daughter of Bruno Airmont, the so-called Al Capone of Cheese. Daphne has run away with a jazz clarinetist named Hop Wingdale. Since Hicks met Daphne before, he is identified as the ideal candidate to track down the runaway couple and return Daphne to her father. Hicks does not want the case. He insists that he has no real relationship with Daphne and that he dislikes matrimonial assignments. His meeting with Daphne was a coincidence, he recalls, when he helped her to escape the clutches of malevolent psychotherapist by escorting her on a motorboat across the lake. He dropped her with friends in the Ojibwe tribe; the Ojibwe believe that those who save someone’s life become responsible for it. Hicks is told to take the assignment and bring back Daphne.

Hicks has a romantic relationship with a singer named April Randazzo. They bond over their shared talent for dancing, but their relationship stalls because April is only attracted to married men. She urges Hicks to get married so she will be more interested in him. April has also come to the attention of a local Mafia boss named Don Peppino, who targets Hicks by sending two henchmen dressed as Christmas elves with an exploding package meant for Hicks. Though he survives the bomb threat, Hicks is told again to take the assignment to find Daphne and thereby leave town. He reluctantly accepts. In New York, he is drugged. Hicks wakes up aboard a boat bound for Europe.

Aboard the Stupendica, Hicks meets Alf and Philippa Quarrender, a British couple who work as spies. They introduce him to the shadowy world of espionage, which is gripping Europe during this time. Eventually, Hicks finds himself in Belgrade. There, he meets Egon Praedinger, an Interpol agent with a severe cocaine habit who recruits the reluctant Hicks to find Ace Lomax, the former right-hand man to Bruno Airmont who is also missing somewhere in Europe. Praediger sends Hicks to Budapest, where he meets various members of the paranormal community, including the noted apportist Dr. Zoltán von Kiss, who seemingly has the power to apport and asport objects. He also meets a daring female motorcycle courier named Terike. With Kiss, Hicks tracks down a tacky lamp that is much desired by collectors. The assignment brings Hicks into contact with Ace and, after a short conversation, he allows Ace to go free.

Having received a tip about Daphne’s whereabouts from an American journalist named Slide Gearheart, Hicks goes to the Tropikus Club in Budapest. There, he finds Daphne. She recognizes Hicks and reveals to him that Hop Wingdale’s band, the Klezmopolitans, have since split up. Hop has embarked on a solo career, and Daphne is pursuing him across Europe, though he seems to have vanished. She is concerned for his safety and implores Hicks to help find her him. Hicks is reluctant to take yet another assignment, but he eventually agrees. During this time, a biker gang of local fascists and antisemites named the Vladboys has established a training camp near the border between Hungary and Croatia. Hicks tracks Hop to the camp, and thanks to the intervention of Ace Lomax and a Jewish Czech man named Zdenêk (who markets himself as a miniature golem), Hicks manages to free Hop from the Vladboys.

During this period, Hicks notices the spread of fascism across Europe. His encounters with Alf and Philippa Quarrender reveal to him that the peace following the end of the war is brittle at best. Hicks talks to people who are convinced that another war is inevitable. Hicks and others travel to Fiume, a port city in modern-day Croatia which is partially under control of the Italian fascists.

In Fiume, reunited with Daphne, Hop reveals that he is working as an undercover agent. He has been working on networks to help extract Jewish people from dangerous places. They agree to go their separate ways. Bruno, reunited with his daughter, offers her a large part of his fortune and then makes his way back to Europe onboard the smugglers’ submarine, only to be intercepted by members of the international Cheese Syndicate. Bruno is told that the United States has experienced a violent coup. In response to a rash of strikes sweeping the country and destroying the dairy industry, the military have seized control. President Franklin D. Roosevelt has been removed from office and General MacArthur is now running the country.

In Fiume, Hicks is told that his onetime lover, April, is now pregnant with the child of Don Peppino. Hicks, as April’s former romantic partner, is seen as a threat by the Mafia boss. He is told not to return to the United States, as his life may be in danger. Hicks chooses to stay in Europe, where Terike promises to help him learn the local language. Skeet, a young informant toward whom Hicks plays a somewhat fatherly role, writes to Hicks, giving him an update from Milwaukee. As well as describing the chaos of the United States, Skeet also writes that he has met a woman and that, together, they are planning to hitch a ride to California.