Owen Clancy's Happy Trail; Or, the Motor Wizard in California

It's 1890s Los Angeles, and young Hiram Hill has just landed in a city exploding with noise, color, and chaos. During a Chinese dragon parade wild enough to upend half the city, Hiram spots what he thinks is his long-lost father tooling around in an automobile and launches himself into the procession with the confidence only a hopeful fool can muster. The resulting riot lands him in a drugstore, nursing his wounds and drafting a telegram to the only man who might help: Owen Clancy, the Motor Wizard, a mechanical genius with a car and a healthy sense of adventure. What follows is a rip-roaring chase across Southern California as the earnest but disaster-prone Hiram and the unflappable Clancy chase down one mistaken identity after another. The novel captures an era when automobiles were miraculous contraptions and Los Angeles still felt like the edge of the wild frontier. It's a period piece that moves with the energy of screwball comedy, complete with colorful characters, mechanical marvels, and the kind of heartfelt persistence that makes you root for a protagonist who can't seem to stop causing chaos.