You get to be a lot of people when you are a vampire.

Meet old Harry Haze: war criminal, Jewish stand-up comedian, friend of Marcel Proust and J. Edgar Hoover. John Harper encounters him while spending the summer in the South of France with his mistress Lucy, and is entranced by Harry's stories of his fabulous past. Then Lucy disappears without explanation and both John and Harry fall under suspicion.

Yet how are we to know the truth when it is hidden in the labyrinth of Harry's bizarre memories and John's guilt at abandoning his wife? Nothing in this story is certain. Is Lucy dead? Is Harry a harmless old druggie or really a vampire? Deep inside his humorous tales is the suppressed memory of a night of sheer horror. And it is possible that one of the two men is an insane killer.