Charles Paris’s acting career plumbs new depths when he takes the part of a possible murder victim in Public Enemies, a true-crime television series. Finding himself in a bizarre world somewhere between police procedure and showbiz, Charles is inexorably drawn into the investigation … especially after the dismembered limbs start turning up.

The viewers of Public Enemies get caught up in the macabre jigsaw puzzle of death; it is ghastly, of course, but it does make good television. As the program’s ratings soar, so the egos behind the scene become ever more inflated, and Charles ever more determined to solve the mystery.