Joe Friday, the strict and repressed nephew of Detective Joe Friday, is introduced to his new partner Pep Streeback and is hired to help bring down a new attack by the evil cult known as P.A.G.A.N....

Joe Friday, the strict and repressed nephew of Detective Joe Friday, is introduced to his new partner Pep Streeback and is hired to help bring down a new attack by the evil cult known as P.A.G.A.N. (People Against Goodness And Normalcy) When Connie Swail is nearly sacrificed at a P.A.G.A.N. meeting, Friday and Pep help save her life and try to get Connie to ID the P.A.G.A.N. leader. Unknown to the police, P.A.G.A.N. is secretly run by the Reverend Jonathan Whirley and he's allied with the Police Commissioner Jane Kirkpatrick and henchman Emil Muzz, the limo driver of Jerry Caesar, the publisher of Bait magazine. Whirley secretly plans to have P.A.G.A.N. murder Caesar by two toxic stolen chemicals and Friday must learn to get along with Streebeck in order to protect Connie and stop the P.A.G.A.N. gang.