Jack Tagger is a frustrated journalist. His outspoken views have relegated him to the obituary page and the newspaper's florid owner, Race Maggad III, has decreed that his byline will never again disgrace the front page. But Jack has stumbled across a whale of a story that might just resurrect his career...

James Stomarti, rock musician extraordinaire and infamous frontman of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, has died in a diving accident and Jack harbours suspicions that the glamorous pop starlet widow may have had a vested interest in her husband's untimely death. It all smells a little too fishy.

Aided and abetted by his rather sexy (if unnervingly ambitious) young editor, Emma, Jack sets out to discover the true circumstances of Jimmy's premature exit from the great stage of life. But of course nothing is ever straightforward and Jack's unhealthy fascination with death - spawned by years of writing obits - keeps getting in the way, along with the brutal internal politics of the paper and a clutch of murderous goons. Was Jimmy Stomarti murdered? Is someone trying to kill off the Slut Puppies one by one? And what significance can a dead lizard named Colonel Tom possibly have?