The night before he's to be sworn in as the city's new District Attorney, Lawrence Dale (Edmund MacDonald) is killed in a car crash. Police are puzzled, wondering what the body of the notorious gangster, Dixie Logan was doing in the same wreck. It takes a shrewd and resourceful newspaper reporter, George Mitchell (Russell Wade) to discover that the young DA is crooked and that he had framed the gangster on a murder charge. To complicate this tale of crime and vengeance in the big city, rival gangs are vying for power and many of the town's politicians are corrupt, making the crusading journalist's investigation both difficult and dangerous.