Shadow has not had an easy life so far. Just as he has served his undeserved prison sentence and is about to return to his beloved wife Laura, he learns that she has had a fatal accident - and this will not be the last blow of fate for Shadow. Therefore, nothing stops him from accepting the job offer from the jovial Mr. Wednesday and becoming his bodyguard. Shadow is kept in the dark about Mr. Wednesday's motives, and the people he meets on his travels across the USA are equally inscrutable. The heavy-drinking and brawling Mad Sweeney, the undertaker duo Mr. Ibis and Mr. Jaquel, and the grim Czernobog are among the more pleasant acquaintances - other encounters, such as with a snobbish guy who calls himself the Technical Boy, are decidedly more threatening. At the same time, events are piling up for Shadow.