The colors of Kay Farrow's landscape are black, white, and shades of gray. An achromat suffering from total color blindness, Kay possesses a vision that informs her world and sharpens her skills as talented photographer. When Tim Lovsey, a handsome prostitute, is brutally slain, he becomes much more than Kay's subject. She makes it her mission to find his killer, even though the police would prefer to quietly let the case drop.

Kay's search for answers takes her back in time to an unsolved serial murder case with disturbing parallels to Tim's killing - a case whose botched investigation led to her father's ouster from the police force. Searching for the truth, she moves from the back alleys, exotic clubs, and dim corners of San Francisco's underground, where - for the right price - any sexual fantasy can be realized, to the elite enclaves of the city's most privileged class.

Kay knows Tim's murderer resides somewhere within these disparate worlds, at an intersection as gray and murky as the shades that define her world.