After making a name for herself on the West Coast, a defense lawyer returns to her hometown of Atlanta to argue a controversial rape-murder case. But it’s not all work and no play: once there, she reenters high society and has a reunion with an old flame — who just happens to be the prosecuting attorney on her case. As she investigates her client’s claims of innocence, she uncovers a sinister conspiracy that threatens both her life and her new romance.

A somewhat daffy book editor on a rail trip from Los Angeles to Chicago thinks that he sees a murdered man thrown from the train. When he can find no one who will believe him, he starts doing some investigating of his own. But all that accomplishes is to get the killer after him.