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Ed Kennedy has come of age and at nineteen he doesn’t like what he has become. It’s not just his mundane circumstances, living alone with an aging dog and driving a cab to support himself. It’s not just his lack of prospects, too unprepared for university or vocational training. What bothers him the most is the derision in which he is held by his mother Bev, his friends Marv and Ritchie, and the love of his life Audrey. They subtly and not so subtly communicate that his lack of purpose qualify him as incompetent. Ed’s worst critic, though, is himself. His role models for nineteen-year-old milestones are Bob Dylan, Salvador Dali, and Joan of Arc. Reaching official adulthood is a time of reckoning for those without a compelling passion or purpose. Ed is past blaming his childhood, his family, or his environment for his failure to launch. Like his role models, he wants success, but his passivity gets in his way. He prefers the status quo he knows to the unknown. 

The inciting incident of the novel is a freak occurrence that breaks in on Ed’s life and sets him on course to become the captain of his destiny. A bank robber holds Ed and his three friends at gunpoint. When the gunman makes his getaway, Ed uncharacteristically gives chase and apprehends the robber. Media coverage publicizes his heroism with pictures and articles. Ed testifies at the trial. Even his mother is impressed. But someone else has also been watching Ed’s life. A playing card – an ace of diamonds –with three addresses arrives in his mail. Ed recognizes the mysterious list as a call to action, and with this first card, the rising action of the novel unfolds. 

The first address brings him in contact with a husband who exploits his marital privileges when drunk by brutally raping his wife. This establishes the moral gravity of the sender, and hints at the degree of personal change Ed may experience. The thought of confronting the brutish husband intimidates Ed, who wracks his brain for a legal remedy. When a gun mysteriously appears in his mailbox, Ed must make a decision, a decision that will help him begin to understand who he is and what he is capable of. Ed uses the gun not to injure or kill but to coerce, to motivate the husband to disappear. For the next two interventions, Ed relies on his powers of observation and keen empathy to rescue the elderly Milla Johnson from loneliness and the teenage Sophie from low self-esteem. With each intervention, Ed begins to recognize that he has the power to make positive changes in others’ lives as well as in his own.  

The sender of the aces delivers the next one via two messengers who beat Ed unconscious to make a point about his insolent attitude. The clue on the ace of clubs is cryptic, and another messenger leads Ed to the card’s missions via a memory-laden path, where he comes to terms with his image of himself as slow and dumb. The message sends him to a priest, a single mother, and a teenage punk with a chip on his shoulder. Father O’Reilly becomes an ally on this fateful journey, encouraging Ed to accept his calling to goodness. Angie Carusso, the single mother of three who gave up her freedom, must work out her own salvation. And Gavin Rose teaches Ed to accept the risks and painful consequences of intervening in people’s lives. With the ace of spades, a wonderful family man restores Ed’s memory of his father. The discovery of Ed’s mother Bev’s marital unfaithfulness discredits her treatment of his father, and by extension, Ed. In movie theater projectionist Bernie Price, Ed meets a kindred spirit who helps him with the next missions. Ed grows as he develops new skills to connect with people, receiving insight and developing compassion that allows him to discard his old self. 

The ace of hearts is the final challenge for Ed to accept his new role as an agent of change. This card brings Ed face to face with those closest to him and calls him to abandon his friends’ sacrosanct status quo. Ed rises to the challenge. He gives Ritchie the motivation to change. He helps Marv face up to his past and right the mistakes he made. And he conveys Audrey’s specialness to her in a way that can heal her sense of worthlessness. 

The climax of the narrative comes when Ed rests on his accomplishments, having completed all of the tasks on the four aces. When a new messenger delivers the joker, Ed reels in fear, especially when he realizes the mission on this card is him. The falling action and resolution unfold toward the end of the story when the sender of the aces reveals himself and takes credit for Ed’s transformation. He says he is the architect of Ed’s destiny, not Ed, to prove that anyone can make a difference. Ed steps up to this final task and claims his journey as his own. The ending, which poses the question of who invented whom, resolves when Ed takes his new place in his old world, completing the hero’s journey.

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