(Some Spoilers) After being declared dead when his body was washed away in a stream where world famous artist Truman York, David Soul, and his girlfriend Diane, Christine Faust, ended up jumping into a stream with Truman's motorcycle as he tried to get away from the police who caught him with a packet of coke. Truman suddenly comes back from the dead, five years later, as he tears apart a painting at the Denver Nurian Gallery that Truman claims to be a forgery. Truman should know since the painting valued at over 100 thousand dollars and attributed to him wasn't painted by Truman!
Truman took some chance in coming back from the dead by now having all his many paintings value in the fact that he's still alive and active. Even more insane on Truman's part he now has Diana' husband Joel McKelves, Mark Moses, gunning for him in his holding Truman responsible for his wife's addiction to drugs and her death in her being a passenger on Truman's motorbike in his run from the law.
Joel McKelves getting the word that Turman is alive and well goes down to the hotel where Truman is staying at and attempts to shoot him only to have Truman get away in the confusion. Staying over at his wife's, also an artist, Lizanne's (Maureen Meller) studio for the night Turman is found with his head bashed open the next morning by some unknown assailant and guess whom the police suspect and arrest for Turman's murder; the guy who earlier tried to kill him Joel McKelves.
Perry takes the case not only because he feels that McKelves is innocent and that he's a good friend and collage fraternity buddy of his assistant Ken Malansky, Robert R. Moses. Perry quickly sees what has to be the real cause for what were the reasons for Trumans murder and it had nothing to do with Trumans love life or his involvement in McKelves wife death. It had to do with who was forging Trumans paintings and how they were used to snooker the public into thinking that they were real.
There's a lot of brushing around the corners and filling in the blank spots in who's involved in this major fraud in the world of art collectors and sellers and it all boils down to the Nurian Gallery and both it's owner Renee Nurian, Jane Carr, and her creepy and somewhat mentally unbalanced top artist Damien Blakely, Scott Valentine.
In a round about way of doing things the murderer of Truman York was not only murdered himself but by the very person who hired him to murder Truman. This strange scenario comes out in open court when Perry Mason ties all the strings together in Trumans murder and how Truman by him coming back from the dead set into motion all of the events that eventually lead to his brutal murder. A man so full of himself as the arrogant and boastful Truman York was turned out to be his own worst enemy who if he just stayed dead and buried in his new identity no one would have been out to get him. In the fact that whatever sleazy revolting and unlikable things that Trumn did in life in his faking his dead Truman didn't really have an enemy in the world.
