The Trap by Harry Stephen Keeler

"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." - Neil Gaiman
Sheriff Lafe Whitecotton has a problem: sleepwalking Whisperwell Jenkins has stolen and burned some important evidence - as well as $500 in cold cash! - from his office and now everyone blames him for just about everything. Throw in a mysterious letter that claims that a book called THE CHINESE CHARACTER holds the clue to a murder and a doddering old detective named Tuddleton Trotter and you have the makings of one of the goldangdest Keeler novels that never made it to print! How Lafe and Tuddleton band together to solve this case is a tale only webworking Harry Stephen Keeler could have devised.