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