The one man crime hunt for Lew Archer, California private detective, when his search for a rooming house keeper's daughter, Galley, turns up mobster activities in wrestling, pinball and dope. The queer set-up of Galley's marriage, another bride and groom, heroin peddlers and dead bodies puts Archer in police black books and gangster gunning, before he torches to a clean-up. Not for the overly fastidious.