A cool, slim, beautiful girl drove up to Mark Warren’s service station in the California desert and asked to have her gas tank filled so she might continue on her flight from some men who insisted on shooting at her. Intrigued, Mark, an ex-newspaper reporter who had gone West for his health, followed the girl to a luxurious date ranch.

Murder followed Mark, who set out to discover: Why had James Link’s body been dragged to the swimming pool after he had been poisoned in his room? Where were the missing dates? And what did the burial of the yellow canary have to do with the crime?