Overview
- Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket, his first novel in 12 years from Penguin Press, is drawing strong early notices for its focus and urgency.
- Set in 1932, the story follows Milwaukee private investigator Hicks McTaggart of Unamalgamated Ops on a case that pulls him from Lake Michigan to European locales such as Budapest.
- Reviewers highlight striking set pieces and historical pastiche, including a rogue Austro‑Hungarian U‑boat and a Milwaukee-to-Europe pursuit involving gangsters, spies and showmen.
- Critics emphasize themes of creeping authoritarianism and moral laxity, reading the book as an elegy for a fading American ideal rather than a neatly resolved detective puzzle.
- The reception praises Pynchon’s signature blend of noir tropes, dark humor and musical prose, with one review calling it an unlikely late‑career masterpiece and others noting subtle alternate‑history touches without detailing them.