The concentration of Johnny Sileacy, piano player who wears a tux to earn a living, on finding the identity- true rather than false- of Corinne Trailor, with whom he has been living and who has been killed in a seeming automobile accident. With love, and taking her as he found her, he finds out after her death that her stories of the past are contradictory, that the telephone numbers he calls, from her book, lead him on to other, disconnected associations, that his pursuit of her past breaks up his ability to work. Traveling with a friend's band, he continues his search through various cities to her home town where he learns the truth he feared- and refused to acknowledge.... A certain quality of manipulation does not mar the able building up of suspense, accented characters, pointed incidents. Can double in the whodunit section, as well as hold its own as a psychological-suspense tale.