Queenie Sells is having what she thinks is a good day. After getting fired from her job at a calendar company for botching daylight saving time, she lands a job offer from a wealthy acquaintance who's trying to track down his girlfriend, a stripper named Trigger Happy. Sounds easy enough -- until Queenie finds Trigger dead in her own apartment.
Now that she's become both suspect for the murder and the target for an unknown predator, Queenie's on the run. Hopping from bar to bar, from Coney Island clam stands to the Waldorf-Astoria, she inadvertently lands on the trail of Trigger's killer, putting herself in the line of fire. Along the way she meets Rey, a private eye with a soft spot for tough-talking ladies; Detective Olds, the stuttering cop who thinks Queenie's the culprit; and a dozen New York denizens -- some strange, some sad, some sweet, and some deadly, every one dropping in and out of Queenie's life as she searches for each fragile piece of the puzzle that may eventually lead her to the truth -- before the next body that turns up is her own.