A full 45 years after the events of Cottonwood, and two decades after the events of Hop Alley, Bill Ogden has relocated from the frontier west to the seedy noir world of 1916 Los Angeles. He has a photography studio in Los Angeles, and his granddaughter, Flavia, has joined him (she was looking for a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita).

The novel’s characters include dangerous ex con, an arrogant young leading man, a naive would be film actress, film workers crossing from mainstream cinema to stag films—their lives intertwine, as a series of murders take place across the city.It is at once a stripped down noir, and a panoramic look at Los Angeles at the beginning of motion pictures—a Boogie Nights set at start of the film era.