London at midnight on New Year's Eve. Artie Cohen realizes something is horribly wrong with his long-time girlfriend, Lily Hanes. Three days later, a call takes Artie to Paris. Lily has been found beaten up and raped in an empty apartment. When she regains consciousness, she doesn't know where she is. Worse, she doesn't know Artie. In a wintry Paris, where drugs are sold like fries at McDonalds and the hookers are trucked in with the vegetables, Artie looks for Lily's attackers and finds himself in a web of sex, death and deceit. The jazz-loving, womanizing Cohen finds himself caught on the border between good and evil; on the other side he finds a place where the trade is in women, in sex slaves, prostitutes, and, worse, the men who use them. A brilliantly conceived plot moves Artie from Paris through Europe to Vienna and then, finally, back to his native New York on a roller-coaster ride on which Artie must keep moving. A thrilling page-turner but also a love story, as Artie contemplates life without Lily.