When a movie shoots in Miami, local PI Mike Shayne gets a behind-the-scenes look at the deadly price of Hollywood fame.
Larry Zion, the long-time chairman of Consolidated-Famous Pictures, is speeding down a Miami highway when a woman in a red convertible pretends to shoot him, running him off the road and putting him in the hospital. But she's not just any woman-she's the actress Larry passed over to star in his latest blockbuster movie-the pirate film that could make or break his company.
With a stockholders' meeting looming, and an outside group trying to take over the company, bad publicity is the last thing Consolidated-Famous Pictures needs. Which is why Larry's son lures PI Mike Shayne out of semi-retirement to keep the volatile actress occupied before the meeting. All Shayne has to do is stay by the side of a beautiful woman for thirty-six hours. Piece of cake. Until she's blown up right before Shayne's eyes, and he's drawn into a world of fleeting fame, sordid sex, and twisted obsession . . .
"The hard-drinking, hard-fisted, quick-thinking private eye!" -Dayton Journal-Herald
