Jack is straight off the plane. He has few friends and no money. In desperation, he accepts an apartment formerly housed by the main suspect in a serial murder case – John Ellroy. Plagued by insomnia, Jack broods in the apartment and wanders the inner-city streets of Melbourne. His loneliness leads him into a friendship with a teenage addict Janie, and into a bizarre obsession with Ellroy. Jack struggles to retain his sanity as his world spirals into madness and violence.