Back in the day, Little Mo Connor was a hired gun for Slick Dickey Scalini, taking down opponents without discretion, always with the same signature kill: three shots to the head, one shot to the heart. Now he's living out his last days hidden away in an anonymous facility, surrounded by other seniors. Haunted by his past, his dementia comes as something of a blessing... though he can't always remember what it is he wants to forget - he mixes up the memories from his own life with those from books he's read. A lover of crime novels from the pulp paperback era, Little Mo relishes lurid tales - the more violent the better.

Take his most recent acquisition: a novel in which he and his trusty .38 snubnose are the stars. It tells the story of a former hit man in love with Varla, a geriatric serial killer who convinces him that murdering his grown daughter is the only way to escape the captivity of their nursing home. But as the plot of the novel begins to play out in Little Mo's waking life, he must struggle to separate fact from fiction before they meet in a deadly conclusion.