When rare photos‚ a scandalous diary‚ and a beautiful woman all go missing at once‚ the stage is set for three challenging cases for Henry Swann. It begins with an offer to partner up with his slovenly‚ unreliable frenemy‚ Goldblatt. The disbarred lawyer-turned-"facilitator" would provide the leads and muscle‚ while Swann would do all the fancy footwork. A lost diary by a free-loving Jazz Age flapper is worth enough to someone that Swann takes a beat down on an abandoned boardwalk. Pilfered photos of Marilyn Monroe propel him deep into the past of an alcoholic shutterbug‚ his wife; and he's hired to search for a lonely writer's runaway girlfriend. The cases converge and collide in a finale that lifts the curtain on crucial‚ deadly facts of life for everyone — including Swann himself.