In Markus Zusak’s I Am the Messenger, what card begins Ed Kennedy’s mysterious missions?

In Markus Zusak’s I Am the Messenger, the ace of diamonds begins Ed Kennedy’s mysterious missions.

Ed Kennedy is a nineteen-year-old taxi driver living an unremarkable life in a fictional Australian suburb. After he helps stop a bank robbery, he receives an ace of diamonds in the mail. The card carries three addresses, beginning a series of tasks that force Ed to help people around him.

The missions range from acts of kindness to more difficult confrontations. Ed does not initially know who sends the cards or how the sender knows so much about his life. That mystery provides the novel’s central structural device, with playing cards arriving as clues and instructions.

The book was published in Australia in 2002 and is also known in some markets as The Messenger. Zusak later became widely known for The Book Thief, published in 2005. The two novels are separate stories and have different narrators and settings.