Six months after his partner was murdered, Rick Stone returns to Sydney trying to pull his life back together. While he was away, two more women were murdered, each seemingly unrelated to the others. When a third woman is murdered in the same way, and Rick gets caught up in the investigation, he becomes obsessed with finding a link between the murders. Each night, Joy Stringer steps outside the quiet orderliness of her day job, and hangs out in bars and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross to gather material for a book she's always wanted to write. After one of her main sources of information dies, she fears for her own safety. When Joy and Rick meet in a bar one night, they discover that by pooling information and working together, they can help each other achieve their goal. That decision leads them into more danger than they could ever imagine, and to an outcome that nobody could foresee.