In the middle of the night, private detective Philip Marlowe takes his friend Terry Lennox to the Mexican border. When Als Marlowe gets home, the police are waiting for him and he hears that Terry's wife Sylvia has been murdered. He is arrested as an accomplice, but released after a few days. He is told that the case is closed, since Terry Lennox apparently committed suicide in Mexico. However, for Voor Marlowe, it is anything but case closed. But the deeper he starts to dig, the more disturbing things he finds out, and the more confusing the knot becomes.