Former banker turned budding romance novelist, Samantha "Sam" Monroe, is wanted in the murder of Ariella Fantini, her soon to be ex-husband's grad assistant and lover. Once Sam proves that she is just about the only person who could not have committed the murder, Ariella's father, a mob boss on the run, makes Sam an offer she doesn't know how to refuse, help solve the murder of his daughter. Sam puts together a list of potential suspects that includes a jealous ex-boyfriend, a plagiarist who is using Ariella's work, a former friend with designs on Rick, her soon to be ex, and Rick himself. With the help of the chair of the English Department where Rick is an assistant professor on tenure track, Sam gets a closer look at the politics of the department. When a local news reporter with connections to a second murder becomes involved, a missing manuscript is up for grabs, and Sam's home is ransacked and her life threatened, it becomes clear that Sam is more prey than hunter. Mr. Fantini and his ever present bodyguard, the police and Sam's friends and family scramble to find her before she becomes the next victim.