The plot centers around the efforts of Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California, to locate a missing person.

Private investigator Kinsey Millhone is hired by Beverly Danziger to locate her missing sister, Elaine Boldt, whose name is needed on some paperwork regarding an inheritance.

Kinsey reports the disappearance and meets Jonah Robb, a recently separated cop working on missing persons.

From the discrepancy in times between his account and what was told to the police, Millhone realizes that it was Elaine who died in the Grice fire, not Marty.

Marty Grice is shot in the left arm during the fight that ensues, but Kinsey manages to detain the two criminals and call for help.

Ed Weiner, writing for The New York Times in 1989, called the book "one of the best written crime novels by anybody in recent memory".