New York City, 1976: Dr. Rebecca "Golda" Rothman, clinical social worker, believes that Dostoevsky and Ibsen understood human behavior better than Sigmund Freud. She treats her clients at The New York City Employee Mental Health Service (EMHS) as literary works in progress instead of rigid categories from The Physicians Desk Reference of Psychiatric Disorder, but one morning she enters her office and finds that her client Hannah Kovacs' zany novel has suddenly become a short story with a tragic ending. Since Hannah feigned narcoleptic attacks to persuade Golda to certify her for disability benefits, the police assume she fell awkwardly and struck her head. They declare her death accidental. Golda is skeptical. Hannah's falls were part of a manipulative performance. Why stage one without an audience?With no one to claim Hannah's body and a bogus address in her personnel file, Golda embarks on a search for Hannah's kith or kin. Instead, her client's past dredges up a peculiar relationship with The Archdiocese of New York, secrets dating from World War II, and exposure to the most degenerate sector of the pornography trade. Golda lands in the telescopic lens of a high-rise peeper, is stalked, shot at, and abducted. Four bodies later, with the unofficial help of Frankie Bradley, a lesbian detective from the NYPD, Golda solves the mystery and motivation for Hannah's death. Simultaneously, her "heterosexual" self becomes strongly and inexplicably attracted to Detective Bradley, and the two contemplate an on-going personal and professional relationship.
