Eighteen-year-old Marli has always dreamed of becoming a star. She can't believe her good fortune when, Jeff, a talent scout encourages her to leave her small hometown of Harlan, Iowa, to become an actress in New York. But Marli discovers it's a big, bad world out there. After being told that she's flunked acting school, she's brutally raped by someone she trusts. Something inside Marli cracks; she uses the perpetrator's own knife and slashes her assailant's throat. A killer is born. She is offered a position she cannot refuse: as an assassin for a local crime boss. It will make her a wealthy woman. Along with Jeff, her mentor, the talent scout who brought her to the big city, she finds psychopathic pleasure in the art of disguise, passion, murder, and mayhem. Marli's secret relationship with Jeff poses risks that the crime boss is not willing to take. Marli can only hope she lives long enough to realize her dreams of success in acting, riches, and a happy marriage.