 Former rock star and San Francisco nightclub owner Johnny Boz is found murdered in his bed. Detective Nick Curran is assigned to the case; he has a history of alcoholism and drug abuse although he is clean now. The prime suspect is Catherine Tramell, an attractive and manipulative novelist who had been seeing Boz for a while. Police psychiatrist Beth Gardner (who happens to be Nick s ex-girlfriend) is brought in on the case when it is discovered that Boz s murder was copied directly from one of Catherine s novels. Nick starts to get too involved and everyone seems to be a suspect.