Beautiful Pam Allison, also known as the Princess, is one of the guys who meets regularly at the Powers Hotel for morning and afternoon coffee. When it appears that someone is blackmailing her on a past event she was not proud of, the guys from Fargo take it upon themselves to root out the blackmailer and save their young damsel from scandal and the wrath of her jealous husband as well. The guys who make up this group are Reggie, the obnoxious college teacher, Snuffy, the broke antique collector, Paul, the loudmouth insurance man, Radio Sko, the senior member, and Johann, an artist who thinks big and paints bigger. Advertising exec, Carrigan Mulhouse, who is especially fond of Pam, is the leader of the pack. He seeks the help of T.B. Harvey, a former truck dispatcher, who has opened a detective agency. T.B. is five foot two and carries a Saturday night special that is prone to misfiring. What he knows about detective work can be placed in a thimble. T.B. enlists the help of Leroy R, a Marxist and former D-student at the college, and between these two, a whirlwind of chaos wields its way through the novel as they come up against some hard case characters including police officer Hardnuts Brodigan, Harriet the whore, and the Fargo-Burnout. All of these people are players on the path to solving the identity of the blackmailer. However, to pay off the blackmail money demands, the guys from Fargo must resort to scams incorporating the three deadly sins-lying, stealing and cheating. They will do anything to save the reputation of beautiful Pam Allison, and they do, sort of.