New law grad Denny Martel is drawn into the life of North Beach and San Francisco in 1966. Angela, the beautiful brilliant psychotherapist turned stripper, and May, Vogue cover model and heroin addict provide romance and danger. Denny represents Claudia, the woman he left in L.A., in a real estate deal in Chinatown while a gang war rages. Denny navigates the treacherous landscape and the intertwined lives of three beautiful, complicated, and dangerous women involving him in intrigue and homicide while, in the background, a conservative San Francisco rapidly evolves into an international center of all things.