In San Francisco's Chinatown, a Chinese-speaking Caucasian criminal robs an antiquities shop and murders the owners, leaving the police with one clue, the killer's voice heard on the phone by a switchboard-operator.

Clifford Ward is a thief working San Francisco's Chinatown district, and his stolen goods are fenced through an interior-decorators shop ran by Lisa Marcel. But when Ward murders two innocent victims during a hold-up, he has to hide out in a cheap hotel, and the police dragnet is closing in on him.—Les Adams <[email protected]>