"I want you all out-gone-dead-exterminated!" high strung Alex Household cried out, when, after a lifetime of struggle, he lost the starring role in a new play called The Hooded Owl-to an actor who couldn't remember his lines. But did that mean that it was Alex who had shot the leading man dead during his climactic speech? charles Paris, for one, could see many logical suspects, from the devious producer to the gullible playwright to the young starlet's overprotective mother. But before our middle-aged actor-drinker-detective could begin his investigation, he was in for a shock: the powers-that-be chose him as the new leading man. Finally, Charles would discover stardom-and what a dead man saw in the last moments of his life!