Stripped of his private detective license and devastated by the murder of his partner Lily Truscott, Cliff Hardy travels to the U.S. to help Lily's brother's tilt for a world boxing title. In San Diego he suffers a heart attack and undergoes a quadruple bypass. He meets nurse Margaret McKinley, an expatriate Australian who is concerned about the disappearance in Sydney of her father-renowned geologist Dr. Henry McKinley. Hardy undertakes to investigate...