The murder of gangster Nick Prenta sparks an investigation of the mysterious socialite, Lorna Hansen Forbes, who seems to have no past, and who has now disappeared. Through flashbacks, we see the woman's anonymous roots, her poor working-class marriage which ended in tragedy, and her determination to find 'better things.' Soon finding that sex appeal is her only salable commodity, she claws her way up to the top levels of a crime syndicate, from man to man. Leaving herself in a very perilous position.