New York City, 1992. For Holly, it's the summer when the city she’s lived in all her life changes past recognition. And the funerals are about to begin. "Let’s get this out of the way," she says. "I’m a white woman who likes black men." That includes her lover Samps. Once a young artist of promise, he's now homeless, living in a Harlem squat, and maybe, Holly fears, clinically insane. But that doesn't explain why she's caught up in a web that connects Jewish, Italian, and black organized crime. Or what any of this has to do with the midtown law firm where she temps, a missing Haitian girl, and a world-famous Japanese monkey. Her friends are getting shot. She and Samps can try to save themselves--or do what they can to stop the killing.