Private investigator Harry Moseby is dedicated to his job, but his dedication does not make him happy or powerful in his personal life, and his wife Ellen is unfaithful to him. Aging actress Arlene Iverson hires Harry to find her trust-funded daughter Delly Grastner, distracting Harry from his marital problems as he tracks the lascivious runaway teen to Florida. In the Keys, Harry has an affair of his own with Paula, and he succeeds in locating Delly, even as he learns that finding her is only the beginning of a much larger case. As the "accidental" deaths multiply, Harry discovers that everyone has his or her own motives and that he cannot do much to stem the tide of deep-seated depravity.