Foster Brenner, a successful film producer, is killed by a bomb hidden underneath the diving board of his swimming pool. Los Angeles Police Department detective Jim Corrigan, who was having a relationship with Foster's daughter Aimee, starts investigating despite the case having been assigned to another officer. Jim interviews Flemming, Brenner's butler, who shows him security footage of two men in ski masks entering the complex and placing the bomb. Jim asks if Brenner had any enemies, and Flemming replies that any man so wealthy and powerful has many. He tells him that several of Brenner's longtime collaborators were excluded in his latest films and were very unhappy about it.