When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey--named Beatrice and Virgil--and the epic journey they undertake together.

"Early one morning, Congressman Alexander Paine Wilson is planning his reelection campaign when a mysterious delivery arrives at his townhouse. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark. What does it mean? The story hurtles between present day Washington, DC, where Wilson tries to get rid of the unsightly beast before it destroys his career, and Victorian England, where readers meet the aardvark's taxidermist and the naturalist who hunted her, and...