Marty Chan and his best friend Remi Boudreau appoint themselves as the school's amateur detectives to solve mysteries. While cracking cases, they sometimes put a crack or two in their friendship, but they remain loyal to each other through thick and thin.

Set in a French-Canadian town in rural Alberta, the novel develops the coming to awareness of a Chinese boy in a community under the myriad of ethnic influences including French, English and Ukrainian. As serious as the novel's thematic dispatch is, Chan's buoyant, gifted humour overrides the tone. After all, Marty thinks he is an alien. This is his secret, Remi Sasseville finds out, and as boys do, he forms a unique friendship with Marty. The alien invasion romp that follows is as entertaining as it is unique.