Kerry, not yet quite over the death of her boyfriend Gary, has returned to college as a mature student. Her friend and flatmate Marco watches Kerry's progress with a mixture of love and envy while he drifts in and out of jobs, relationships and drugs. Then Robin appears - a fellow student who represents new possibilities to Kerry, but means only trouble to Marco.
Kerenza Penhaligan is a struggling actress: once feted as a future star she is now reduced to taking embarrassing bit parts in TV dramas and standing in for other, more successful actors at read-throughs. Wondering where her career has gone, unable to pay her rent, and with her self-confidence flagging, she struggles to keep sight of the boundary between right and wrong. When she steps in to break up a violent confrontation in a bar, Kerenza finds herself caught up in a twilight world of conmen and cheats, of dubious moral choices, and temptingly high rewards. She meets the enigmatic Evan, who offers her a different avenue for her skills - in which her acting talent ends up proving far more useful off the stage than on it. Kerenza soon learns, however, that there's no such thing as a victimless con?