Just outside the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas`s late-night casinos and cabarets lies the wide open desert. In this dry, unforgiving terrain, the badly mutilated corpse of a once-gorgeous showgirl is found. Having spent days under the hot sun, the body cannot be identified, leaving Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe and his personally assembled crew of experts the unenviable task of tracking down a vicious murderer.