Tenacious homicide detective Cassie Mayweather and her still-green partner are working a murder case, attempting to profile two malevolently brilliant young men: cold, calculating killers whose dark secrets might explain their crimes.
Professional killer Gav Reed commits a grave mistake allowing himself to be videotaped (as she always does, for a documentary she hopes to sell to Hollywood about the real nocturnal 'eldest business' there) by Julie Spencer, one of Max 'Slim' Reuter's hookers and porn actresses, whom he had sex with before - and while making a most incriminating call about his murder attempt at a high society campaign party for mayor Garland's electoral challenger Mary Washington, where the bullet is however caught by councilor Frank Constantine, who also survives. Gav's client, businessman Ian Hunter, who was videotaped earlier, has his girl Marina shoot Gav and then Julie, later Slim who. Rough but effective police detective Killian investigates, helped by Julie's friend Carly Marsh, and unravels even more sordid connections.
Jamie Roberts is a rock star living the highlife when he falls for an intellectual child psychologist who only has ears for classical music. Opposites attract, but his jealous ex-girlfriend isn't ready to give up so easily.
Miniature Dwyer is named after her mother, who was making miniature doll houses when Minnie was born. Minnie, too, has built doll houses for years, and when she learns that she is terminally ill, she and her husband Teddy begin planning their joint suicide. She makes sure that her dolls are placed with people who will appreciate and cherish them. The couple refuse to allow their grief-stricken daughter or the solicitous social worker or anyone else to forestall the death they are determined is right for them
A social worker tries to break up a ring of crooks who buy newborn babies from teenaged mothers and sell them to couples who can't obtain them through legal adoption channels.
