Roy Dillon is young, good-looking and devastatingly charming. He's alsoa completely amoral con man. Lily, his mother, works for the mob. MoiraLangtry, Roy's mistress, is always looking for the main chance, and sois Carol Roberg, the nurse brought in to look after Roy when a badchoice of mark means he has an unfortunate encounter with a baseballbat and a bad case of internal bleeding. Together they make up a perverse quadrangle of love and greed in acoruscating novel of corruption.