Plot
Tracy Whitney, the protagonist of the story, is a young, beautiful, and intelligent woman working as a computer operator for a bank in Philadelphia. The story begins with a phone conversation between Tracy and her mother Doris Whitney, who lives in New Orleans and takes care of the business set up by her deceased husband. Tracey tells her mother about her planned marriage with a businessman, Charles Stanhope III. Doris commits suicide after the conversation and Tracy is notified about it by a Lieutenant of the New Orleans police department. Upon arriving at New Orleans, Tracey becomes aware of the circumstances that led to her mother's suicide. She learns that Joe Romano, the main assistant of New Orleans' mafia leader Anthony Orsatti, had framed her mother into a legal case relating to fraud—Doris didn't have the money to fight the case and decided to commit suicide.
Tracey is filled with hatred for Romano, and naively decides to bring her mother's name in the clear by making Romano confess his misdeed. She purchases a gun, which she only intends to use to threaten Romano, and reaches Romano's house. Romano lets her in and offers her a drink, while she asks him to write out a confession letter. Romano refuses, snatches the gun and tries to rape Tracey. Tracey grabs the gun during the struggle and accidentally fires a shot at Romano. She is horrified, as she never intended to kill Romano. She calls for medical aid and then flees to the airport where she is arrested by two policemen.
She learns that Romano was alive, only wounded by the shot. The plaintiff accuses her of attempted murder and stealing a costly painting from Romano's house. She is assigned an attorney named Perry Pope who, to her ignorance, works for the mafia. Pope convinces her to plead guilty in court before Judge Lawrence (who is also secretly a mafia man) and promises that she'll be given only a three month prison sentences. She follows his advice, and realizes in court that it was all a setup by Orsatti and Romano to destroy her — Lawrence sentences her 15 years of incarceration in Southern Louisiana Penitentiary for Women. Charles doesn't give her a chance to let her explain her version of the incident, and leaves her at her fate with his unborn child in her womb. Tracy enters a life of hardship, sexual harassment and violence at the penitentiary and vows revenge against all those who harmed her and her mother. The title of the novel itself is from a melodramatic quote in the novel, where Tracy vows to take her revenge tomorrow, if tomorrow comes:
| " | She was going to make them pay… Tomorrow, she thought. If tomorrow comes. | " |
Eventually, she becomes the nanny for the prison warden's young daughter, a job that leads to her release from jail. After coming out, she cunningly sets up distrust among Romano, Perry Pope and Orsatti, and frames Judge Lawrence in Russia over spying charges, thus ruining Anthony Orsatti's empire.
Desperate, unable to find a job as an ex-convict, she turns to a well-known New York City jewelry store owner (and fence) who helps her make some fast money in a jewel heist. Escaping with the goods, Tracy has an encounter with Jeff Stevens, a master con man. Stevens steals the jewels from Tracy, who realizes she's been had. She then cons Jeff, taking back her prize. Not long after, Tracy travels to England and is introduced to Gunther Hartog, a world-class fence for valuable stolen property. Thus begins her life as one of the world's cleverest criminals. Tracy pursues some brilliant con schemes filled with humor and ingenuity all over Europe — such as stealing jewelery from an actress on the Orient Express, valuable painting from a museum, reselling a gem to a jeweler for much higher than its worth, etc. The Interpol issues alerts all over Europe in search of - as they perceive it - a gang of con-women. Only Daniel Cooper, a plain-looking sociopath and insurance investigator, seems capable of matching Tracy's brilliance; although he never manages to catch her red-handed. In the end, after having collected enough money to live a luxurious life, Tracy and Jeff plan to marry and live together in Brazil as law-abiding citizens.
Unusually, the book presents the nominal "villains" – Tracy and Jeff – as sympathetic and kind-hearted, while the pursuing detective, Cooper, is presented as almost psychotic; this could be a reversal of the classic "bloodhound detective" chasing a smart and elusive enemy, as in The Day of the Jackal.
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