A former actress, Vivian Parry now works as the junior theater critic at a major Manhattan magazine. Her nights are spent beyond the lights, in a reserved seat, giving herself over to the shows she loves. By day, she savages them. Angling for a promotion, she reluctantly agrees to an interview, a conversation that reveals secrets she thought she had long since buried. Then her interviewer disappears, and she learns --- from his devastated fiancée --- that she was the last person to have seen him alive. When the police refuse to investigate, Vivian does what she promised herself she would never do again: she plays a part. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she turns her critical gaze toward an unsanitary private eye, a sketchy internet startup, a threatening financier, fake blood and one very real corpse.