Eccentric private eye Dirk Gently uses 'holistic' methods, believing everything in the universe to be connected. When hired to trace elderly Ruth's missing cat, Dirk, with down-trodden sidekick MacDuff, investigates a warehouse, which houses a strange contraption, which blows up. A connection is made to a missing billionaire, Gordon Way, who has been besotted with MacDuff's girlfriend Susan for over a decade. Dirk connects the dates when Ruth acquired her cat and when Susan threw over Way to solve a puzzle involving time travel and homicide, accounting for the missing cat and billionaire as well as the disappearance of Ruth's husband.

Dirk discovers the connection between two unrelated cases - a client who believes the Pentagon are trying to kill him and another whose horoscopes appear to be coming true.

Dirk is called back to his old university to protect a valuable robot but within 24 hours it has been stolen and a dead body discovered, with Dirk and Macduff the prime suspects.

Dirk’s old clients are being randomly murdered with Dirk as the only link. Rather than talk to the police, Dirk elects to leave the country but is waylaid by a series of seemingly unconnected events.