Sheriff Cas Larkin of Pine County, Tennessee hears of a bloody mugging in New York ciy with enough horror and high priced jewelry involved to have his local people calling him to tell him about it when they see the news on CNN. Thieves chopped off the hand and lower arm of a jewelry courier and it makes waves all the way down south to Cas. He gets no chance to be glad he's miles from the scene because the victim has a Maryvale address in his identification and they can't find a next of kin for him in New York even to notify of his death. The detective in charge of the case calls on Cas to help locate relatives of the victim in Maryvale. The plot thickens as Hollywood, newspapers, and gossip collumnists get into the act to interfere, and the case is beginning to look like a movie set when even the perps who stole the jewelry get into the act trying to find out the truth about the jewelry that was in the courier's case.