When blonde, attractive, and promiscuous Stella Caraway is found murdered, a scarf around her broken neck tied in a bow and her near naked body displayed like a bizarre gift, her stormy marriage immediately points to her evasive husband, Steven, as the killer. But Chief Inspector Jim Ashworth, swimming against the tide of his colleagues opinions, thinks this too obvious a solution. As the list of Stella's ex-lovers continues to grow, including everyone from a gardener to a councilman, Ashworth realizes he has a rather befuddling task ahead of him. The "new guard" in the department, desperate to oust him for a modern, automated system of detective work, begins to assert its pressure. In a race against time and youth and impetuousness. Ashworth, fighting for the wisdom of experience, must call in his last remaining favors and rely on old-fashioned detection mixed with intuition to try to get the job done.