The story begins as Dwight McCarthy, working as a photographer for a grossly overweight man named Agamemnon, saves one of the Old Town prostitutes, Sally, from one of her customers, whom Dwight was investigating on behalf of his wife; he then drives her back to Old Town.

Dwight is suspicious of her, as Ava broke his heart four years ago by running off with another richer man, Damien Lord, but the lure of seeing her again is too powerful and he agrees to meet her anyway.

Manute pretends not to recognize him from the bar in front of Damien then beats him brutally before throwing him from a car into the street.

Ava talks about how her husband regularly charges Manute with abusing her physically, believing soon Damien will go too far and kill her.

Dwight convinces Marv, over several drinks and whilst watching Nancy dance, to help him storm Damien's estate.

Marv tackles the guards as a distraction and eventually takes on Manute, ripping his right eye out and beating him savagely.

Ava tells Dwight she never loved him or Damien, that she's waited years to "be in charge", even goes so far as to call herself "evil".

The hookers of Old Town perform surgery on Dwight's multiple bullet wounds, then the leaders of the ladies (the Twins) tell him to leave.

They interrogate Agamemnon, who tells how Dwight is an upright man who went clean after being a wild alcoholic with a short temper in his younger days.

Mort on the other hand, has left his wife and fallen in love with Ava and refuses to see past her lies.

Ava, with her late husband's financial assets, is joining her corporation with the mob boss Wallenquist.

Unaffected by Ava's flirting, he warns her not to underestimate him again and tells her to tie up her loose ends with Dwight; he has someone arriving from Phoenix soon to meet her about that.

In his review for the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, James Blasingame said that even though A Dame To Kill For is a quick read, it has a complex story.

He says, "All of the elements of a good novel are present, plot; beginning, middle, ending; dramatic crescendo; fully developed characters; complex constructions of narrative perspective; and, despite Miller’s graphic style, not so black-and-white socially troubling questions about the nature of good and evil, justice, and redemption.