It's 1949, the war is long over, the next one is heating up, and U.S. Navy Gunner's Mate and former San Diego Police detective Frank Keegan has just returned to Hawaii after serving a four-year tour with the Military Police in Occupied Japan looking forward to mustering out of the military. On his first weekend back in the islands, he plans to get drunk, chase rich skirts, and hopefully stay out of the brig. Within hours of coming ashore, however, the Honolulu Police pick him up for the murder of Navy Lieutenant Elizabeth "Betsy" Vale.

Although he is cleared quickly, his former commanding officer, the current commander of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, pulls him out of the frying pan only to pitch him back into the fire by asking Keegan to help clear the charges against the police's prime suspect, Betsy Vale's fiance, Lieutenant-Commander Guy Beaufort.

The Honolulu cops are certain they have the right man, but the Navy will not give up one of their own quite so easily, so Keegan finds himself in the unfamiliar waters, working for the defense while bucking the local cops, particularly Sergeant Joseph Takeda (a veteran of the famed 442nd regimental combat unit), as he searches Oahu for the actual killer or killers.

To make matters worse, he finds himself in the middle o f a bitter dock strike, caught between a union organizer (and possible Communist agitator), and a Red-obsessed Federal agent.

Also getting in his way are a couple of goons chasing $10,000 they suspect Keegan of having, an unreliable former friend, a Chinese gambling boss, a loose boozy officer's wife, a morphine-addicted former Navy nurse (and friend of the deceased), and a foul-mouthed young hooker. He may even have to buck his own commanding officer to solve the case and ensure that justice is served.

When he first arrived in Hawaii, his plans had been clear; by the time the week is out, there's been so much blood under the bridge, he is certain about very little.