When the phone rings in the middle of the night, publisher Guy Mallon learns his book warehouse has burned to the ground. Rushing to the scene, he and arson inspector Rosa Macdonald see a total loss. And a burned body. Guy Mallon Books faces bankruptcy and the probable dissolution of its partnership--Carol Murphy, Guy's lover and business manager, fed up, had already split. But why is her car spotted parked nearby? Guy begins the story lunching with retired businessman Fritz Marburger. Like the devil himself, Marburger tempts Guy with a proposition: to publish celebrity jazz singer Sweet Lorraine Evans' novel, which he will underwrite. It's the first step in a Faustian bargain that finds Guy getting a whiff of the sweet smell of success, followed by the increasingly noxious fumes as the crass Marburger becomes Lorraine's agent, rents Guy's warehouse space, and saddles him with an amoral co-tenant: Roger Herndon pornographer turned vanity publisher.
