When famed photographer Christina Eames dies unexpectedly, she leaves her estranged daughter, Mae, hurt, angry and full of questions. When Mae finds a photograph tucked away in a safe-deposit box, she soon finds herself delving into her mother's early life - an investigation that leads to an unexpected romance with a rising journalist.

Poised with sharklike self-assurance, Marla Grayson is a professional, court-appointed guardian for dozens of elderly wards whose assets she seizes and cunningly bilks through dubious but legal means. It's a well-oiled racket that Marla and her business-partner and lover, Fran, use with brutal efficiency on their latest "cherry," Jennifer Peterson - a wealthy retiree with no living heirs or family. But when their mark turns out to have an equally shady secret of her own and connections to a volatile gangster, Marla is forced to level up in a game only predators can play - one that's neither fair, nor square.

In a small African port, a tawdry bar is run by a man named Webb Fallon. Fallon is actually a vampire, but he is becoming weary of his "life" of the past few hundred years.