Calder the Scalder

On Halloween night 1997, Crawford Clement Howe murders his landlord with a paring knife while dressed as a loggerhead shrike. The police gun down Crawford after a short standoff in the boiler room. After the smoke clears and the feathers settle, a bizarre notebook is found behind the furnace: the Lucky Shrike Tavern's "incident logs". Mandated by Howe's liability insurer, the journal documents the events at the Lucky Shrike to fend off any future lawsuits. But these logs reveal much more: a blue collar Diary of a Madman. Clement, an amateur ornithologist with a love of antiques and a worsening hunchback, fights to survive in his changing city. Crowded by developers, strangled by bureaucracy, and starved by new competitors, he stubbornly pushes forward. Day by day, inch by inch, each entry charts Crawford's transformation from an honest barkeep to a vengeful birdman.