Private detective Eddie Shoestring is asked by Radio West to look into the life of Sarah Marshall, a prostitute who has committed suicide. She died in a Rolls Royce belonging to David Carn, the station's most popular disc jockey, immediately after she had desperately tried to see him, and Radio West wants Eddie to show Sarah had no connection with their man.

Eddie nervously does his first ""Private Ear"" program and tries to locate the drivers of a van who are responsible for killing a young woman's husband in a car accident.

Eddie goes to work for Jean, the wife of Major Hansford, a tough prep school headmaster (and retired Army officer) whose small school is being threatened by a series of nasty pranks.

Marion Cutler, a social worker, asks Eddie to look for Nick Forrest, one of her charges who has gone missing. Nick is a remarkable fellow who had been living in a hut on the beach. But Steve, the owner of the hut, tells Eddie he's never heard of him. The mystery begins to centre on some aerial photographs of the coast-line taken by Nick, and Eddie soon finds he is onto a dangerous gang of drug-smugglers.

Mel Shepherd threatens to throw herself off the roof of the Radio West building unless Eddie investigates her claim of a miscarriage of justice. Her husband Harry was jailed for killing a shop assistant while robbing a local jeweller's shop — but did he do it?

A distraught woman asks Eddie to find her daughter, who she is sure has been kidnapped by her ex-husband.

After Molly Tasker, director of a local women's refuge, accuses Radio West of ignoring domestic violence, Eddie investigates why the late Jackie Craig, whose wife is in the hostel, was unaccountably wealthy when he drowned. Eddie traces Craig's belongings to his ex-employer Jimmy Colefax, who is sailing round the world and whose wife Val is providing a daily link-up with him. However, a local radio ham alerts Eddie to the fact that Jimmy is apparently broadcasting from a nearby location, rather than thousands of miles away. He may be a fraud but is he also a murderer?

Stamp dealer Joss Hargreaves collapses and dies whilst being bundled into a car by heavies working for Strickland, a corrupt businessman whom Eddie is trying to expose. Milkman Andy Stapleton witnesses everything but is spotted and goes on the run, having told Eddie. Knowing Andy's reputation as a liar when they were psychiatric patients together, Eddie is unconvinced until he himself is attacked and thrown from a car. Having discovered Hargreaves' double life and his connection with Strickland, Eddie sets a trap.

Rock singer Toola asks Eddie to dissuade her sacked bass player Mole from his belief that his beauty queen girlfriend Chrissie was killed out of jealousy by the band's manager, Malcolm Kenrick. Mole is persistent despite a beach photographer showing Eddie a recent picture of Chrissie and the lady herself. When Mole is killed, apparently the victim of a drug overdose, Eddie sees that he stumbled on something Kenrick wished to keep quiet and that he was right in his accusation.

Sonia is concerned for her friend, travel agent Jenny Kelson, whom she sees apparently being threatened by a young man. Eddie follows him, leading to a remote country house owned by a couple of dog breeders, where he discovers that they're burglars, tipped off by Jenny as to when householders will be on holiday and their homes empty.

When Maddy Hopkins joins religious cult, The Starshiners, her anxious mother, convinced that the group is out to get her trust fund money from her 21st birthday, asks Eddie to investigate. Maddy will hear nothing against the group but Eddie suspects a racket and meets the apparently sincere cult founder Stephen Steele. However, forging an uneasy alliance with reporter Felicity Lamb, Eddie sets out to expose a conspiracy.