After more than twenty years, Mike Ward is back. Older and a lot wise, he's been sent by the Canadian wire service to cover the spoiled children and their controlling parents: the actors and producers of Hollywood. It's 1940. The war in Europe is well under way. The U.S. is uncertain of its role - and, if it participates, there are those in positions of power who think Germany is best to side wirh. Against this background, a studio big-shot's death is ruled a suicide, but with no physical evidence and no motive other than the fictions created by the propaganda machinery of the film factories. Mike Ward sets about investigating the death and, along the way, has encounters with many of the greats of the era (Errol Flymm, John Barrymore, W.C. Fields), and witha number of the infamous (Bugsy Siegel and Virginia Hill).