When mutilated Barbie dolls start showing up all over Las Vegas, ace freelance PR woman and amateur detective Temple Barr agrees to go undercover at Teen Idol, a TV reality show. Unfortunately, she knows several people associated with the production, including her romance novelist aunt from Manhattan and her sleazy nemesis Crawford Buchanan. Temple is on her own among twenty-eight unnatural blonds who'd kill to be named Teen Idol Queen, and someone who'd just kill, period. Usually Temple has an ace or two up her sleeve, but Max Kinsella, her ex-magician boyfriend, is AWOL, and her neighbour, sometimes love-interest Matt Devine is in Chicago, tracking down his family roots. Can redheaded Temple fool her nearest and least dearest under the punk persona of Xoe Chloe Ozone? Luckily, there's one alpha male Temple can always lean on: Midnight Louie, her black alley-cat roommate. Louie is on the case, ensuring that all the "little dolls" under his care live to debut on national TV as more than lovely corpses.