During the Spanish Civil War Frank Swiver and his college pal, Max Rabinowitz, both fall in love with Amanda Zingaro, but she and her father are shot by a local fascist strongman. Eleven years later in San Francisco in 1949, Frank, traumatized by the violence in Spain, has become a pacifist and makes a marginal living as a private eye. He is called into a murder that the cops hope to write off as suicide. Max, who lost an eye in Spain but owes his life to Frank, becomes a public defender and calls Frank in to help him build a defense for a Mexican accused of knifing a naked man in a hotel room. More puzzling, Max has met a woman in the case who is a dead ringer for Amanda, the woman they thought they'd lost years ago in Spain. What's going on?