Hard-boiled homicide as two very shady private ""dicks'"" shakedown scheme backfires into a murder charge, and they go sleuthing to save their own necks. There's a badger game, an unconvincing suicide, a little blackmail, but the real motive concerns rare dime novels and their collectors. The dicks bungle the clues until they finally stumble into the nest of killers and fight their way out in admirable roughhouse fashion. Fast-paced and pugnacious.