The novel itself starts as a meeting between a Harvard History Professor and his delinquent student who submitted ‘Jesse James & The Secret Legend of Captain Coytus’ as his thesis paper. The professor assumed the maniacal submission by his student must be a prank, but it soon becomes apparent that not only is the submission the student’s own work, but that he believes every written word. Thus begins a rehashing of the student’s paper, which involves the famous outlaw Jesse James, and much of his Bushwhacker cohorts, along with the mysterious, Captain Coytus.
Thus begins a comic adventure of a historical lifetime.