A lesbian conference in San Francisco is set to centre on the arrival of the Winged Dancer, a priceless golden statue loaned from South America.

Despite elaborate precautions, the statue is stolen en route by a woman calling herself Slick, who then begins taunting the organisers and investigators trying to recover it. The question quickly stops being just where is the statue? and becomes who is Slick, and what exactly is she trying to expose?

Slick moves through queer desire, performance, symbolism, and power, asking what happens when an object meant to stand for women is seized, hidden, and turned into a provocation. Published in 1990, it belongs to a sharper, less domesticated strain of queer fiction: politically charged, psychologically slippery, and resistant to neat resolution.