Meet Pierpont Tree and China Carlyle. He's the devastatingly handsome and urbane scion of an old Santa Barbara family; she's the ravishingly beautiful, flame-haired film star who retired at the peak of her career. Together, they investigate murders. Late one night at the California headquarters of the lavish design magazine Manor House, a dark figure puts a bullet through the head of flamboyant editor-in-chief Beau Paxton. The murder leaves Pier and China with quite a crowd of suspects: the twin brothers who own Manor House and hold a multimillion-dollar insurance policy on Beau's life; the beautiful young managing editor, the real brains behind Beau's flashy, figurehead position; and a whole world of designers and dealers, players and wanna-be's, high rollers and low lifes, whose ambitions make Manor House a magazine to die for.