The case of the disappearance of a dashing Irishman who by pure chance became the husband of an American millionaire's heiress looks almost like a vaudeville... until death itself intervenes. Old General Sternwood hires detective Philip Marlowe to find out the fate of his elder daughter's missing husband, who was once a bootlegger. But this family already has more than enough secrets. And then vaudeville turns into an investigation of the absurdly brutal murder of a petty blackmailer โ the first crime among many.