Stand-up comic Biff Kincaid is filling in as headliner at the Chortles Club for an acquaintance who cancelled very suddenly without any explanation. While waiting for his turn, he watched a newcomer, Ned Lando, opening the show with lines that Biff knows are the exclusive property of other comics - and doing it very lifelessly and unprofessionally at that. But he really is furious when he discovers that Lando has paid the sound man to tape his, Biff's act, obviously to take the one-lines for his own use.

A comic's jokes are his essential stock in trade - robbing him of them is as evil as stealing a pianist's left hand. Who is this guy, where did he come from and why did the owner of the Chortles Club even let him be in the show? Knowing that something is wrong with the whole scene, Biff, with the help of a perky young woman comic he meets on this gig, starts to dig deeper. Getting knocked down by Lando's gorilla-like bodyguard only makes him madder and more determined to find out what is going on and how this thoroughly untalented "performer" who has to steal the material he uses can hire a Los Angeles theater filled with a paid audience for his "debut." And the further into these depths Biff gets, the closer he comes to being forced to cancel any future stand-up appearances of his own.

Despite all of the chaos, one thing is clear-Biff better figure out what is going on before the last laugh is on him.

Genre: Mystery