Card shark Farika Zingarella won the greatest game of poker ever played. Her prize, the town of Simpering, North Dakota. Gathering like-minded female geniuses to her side, she forged an empire capable of holding off the world - which is precisely what they did. There wasn't much to laugh about in 1919. World War I had ended, but fascism would soon be on the rise overseas. American women held fast on the suffrage question. Then along came "The Mighty Five" of the Literary Society. You've never lived in a town like this.