It's 1926 in New York City...
...and Emile de la Roche is many things to many people. A French aristocrat, leaving a slew of proposals unanswered in Calais. A visiting bon vivant, sampling the finest of the Big Apple. The 'Queen of France', a performer and fleeting star of the pansy scene.
The truth? Emile de la Roche is an illiterate con artist.
He might not even be French.
And then Emile meets Alex Warren, a mobster's closeted son exiled from Seattle when family affairs got messy. Rich, naïve and out of his depth in New York's underworld, it should be easy to rip him off and hop the next train.
And that's precisely what Emile and Jackie, his best friend and fixer, intend to do.
But you know how these stories go, right?
Our heroes are con artists, thieves, and murderers. They’re Great War deserters and draft dodgers, carrying night terrors and trauma, and they're lying to survive every day.
In an era where prohibition forced the best of high society down into the same underground drinking holes as the lowest of the low, they may rub shoulders with old money or mobsters... but they're always faking it.