Los Angeles private-eye Philip Marlowe is trying to locate the brother of his new client, a Kansas woman named Orfamay Quest. The trail leads to two men who deny any knowledge of the brother's existence. Both are soon killed by an ice pick, so Marlowe deduces that there is much more to this than a simple missing-person case.
Marlowe's path crosses that of a blackmailed movie star, Mavis Wald, and her friend, exotic dancer Dolores ("with an O") Gonzales. A mobster sends Kung Fu expert Winslow Wong to bust up Marlowe's office and warn him off the case, while Lieutenant French also cautions the detective to stay out of the police's way.
Hand-to-hand combat between the martial artist and detective leads to Wong's plummeting to his death off a balcony. Several more die along the way in a case that leads to a final shootout during a striptease.
Who is the blackmailed movie star?
Mavis Wald