One-time hero in a series of cheap westerns, he now scrapes a living collecting debts for his old Indian co-star, Joseph Mad Crow. John Ray Horn knows all about regret. Rose Galen once had a talent that lit up the screen. Then his past resurfaces in the form of an old flame and forgotten movie star. But before she can share her secret, Rose is murdered and Horn sets out with the aid of Mad Crow to find her killer. Now she is a shattered creature, drink-sodden and haunted by some tragic event in her past. It is a quest that leads back into the dark heart of 1920s Hollywood, to a party where mobsters mingled with movie stars, and where a young girl met a terrible death.