Rockford gets hired by the heir of his murdered wealthy parents to try and solve their murder before the police can pin the murder on him.
Rockford stops in a small town to get his car fixed and needs to store $10,000 in a safe. Problem is, the next day the money is gone and the person who had the money is murdered. Rockford becomes the only suspect and needs the help of his father and grifter Harry DeNova to free him of this crime.
Jim is hired by a deputy distict attorney to investigate the goings on in a private club where a colleague has been spending much of his time.
Gandolph Fitch has done his time for murder - twenty years - and is now a free man. And the meanest con on C block wants something from Rockford: the $1500 Rockford lost to him in a prison poker game. That's money Rockford just doesn't have, but Fitch is willing to take it in trade: all Rockford has to do is solve a twenty year old crime: who really killed Fitch's girlfriend?
Mob goons burst into Rockford's trailer in search of tapes King Sturtevant left with him. Then Federal Agent Shore collars Rockford and he also wants the tapes. Trouble is, Rockford has no idea who King Sturtevant is or where the tapes are! The only way out of this jackpot is to find "King" Sturtevant and get answers...
Beth Davenport brings her friend David Delaroux to see Rockford. Beth respects both men, so when David told her he suspected financial fraud at his employer, she knew right away who to ask for help. Rockford easily discovers that there's no fraud - and then two dead men turn up in Rockford's trailer. He's stuck between the local police and Federal agents, and Beth can't help him because she was already working for Delaroux!
Jim takes Beth Davenport out on a date. But it's a setup; she has made reservations at a restaurant owned by a friend of hers, Joey Blue-Eyes. Once mob muscle, Joey has gone straight and started a restaurant, and - bitter irony - criminals have nearly defrauded him out of it. Rockford and DiMinna mix like vinegar and water, but for Beth, Rockford will try to get Joey out of this jackpot. If Joey's temper doesn't get him in worse trouble first...
Arnold Bailey, one of Beth Davenport’s clients, is under indictment. Arguing a case, Beth is cited for contempt and jailed. Arnold visits her in prison to discuss his own case and someone slips sodium cyanide into the coffee. Beth is gravely ill and when Jim attempts to retrieve documents from her safe, someone saps him and makes off with the contents. Was Bailey the target of the poisoner or was Beth? And what did Beth have in her safe that someone wanted so badly? And how does mobster Marty Jordan fit into this puzzle?
Art dealer Thomas Caine hires Rockford to purchase a particular piece at auction. It is a cormorant, a rare copy of an even rarer original. Thieves attempt to steal the piece from Rockford in the auction house parking lot; in the scuffle the bird falls and breaks open. Rockford knows he’s got problems, so he returns to see Caine and discovers the hotel room empty and the manager certain it was never rented. Why did Caine want the bird so badly and why does he no longer seem to? Is his unwholesome reputation earned, or merely the badmouthing of competitor Evelyn Stoneman? And why are Lloyd’s of London and Scotland Yard both interested?
Rocky brings his old friend Peter Prelli to see Jim. Pete believes his daughter Houston has been kidnapped. Fortune has favored Prelli on and off through his life. This is one of the off periods – he has no money. So who has kidnapped his daughter, and why? Then someone murders Pete. He’s gone to his grave thinking his daughter a crime victim. When Jim investigates he discovers Houston was never even missing! What’s going on, and does it have anything to do with numerous offers Pete received for his small parcel of land recently?
Jim Rockford’s old parole officer shows up at the trailer. It seems he has another parolee who’s in trouble. Strong arm men want the young athlete to shave points, an offense that will land him back in prison. Jim doesn’t like the man but eventually agrees to look into it. Then he discovers this case is like an artichoke: he has to peel off layers of falsehood before he reaches the truth at the heart of it – starting with his client...
An old flame who burned Jim years ago comes back into his life. What starts out as a simple favor turns into jail time for Jim and a complicated web of betrayal, counterfeiting, burglary and perhaps even murder. Jim has to figure out who’s pulling the strings in this puppet show before it ends with him dead!
Lori Jenevan, an employee of TCA, chats with a regular traveler, but the man claims she has mistaken him for someone else. When Lori leaves for home, someone stalks her through the airport parking lot. She tries to run, but the dark-suited man cuts her off. Another car turns on headlights, and Lori flees towards it, dropping her bag. She makes it back to the safety of the terminal where she calls on her friend Jim Rockford, who helps her past her terror. The airport police search the area, but find nothing. Then someone makes more attempts on the woman’s life. Jim must discover who wants her dead and why, and his only clue is the traveler whose appearance started Lori’s nightmare.
The sound of heavy machinery awakens Jim at six o’clock one morning. Police and a man in an expensive suit supervise excavation of the beach near Jim’s trailer. The man in the suit is psychic Roman Clementi, here to assist the police in their search for Rick Richards and Allison Curry. The psychic claims they’re dead, and lying near a body of water. On top of that, Rocky arrives with a new tiller – he’s going ahead with his plans for a new truck garden, and he wants help from Jim with the heavy lifting. Jim’s day starts off badly, and then Clementi decides Jim has information relevant to the case, earning him unwanted attention from drug peddlers and the police, both of whom very much want to find $80,000 in missing drug money.
Stuart Gaily tells his daughter pulls his daughter out of class and takes her to the beach. Then two men arrive, and when Gaily sees them, he tells his daughter to wait for her Aunt Cecil, then sends her to wash her face. When she disappears into the restroom, he runs and the men chase after him. Hours later, the girl waits for her Aunt Cecil outside Jim’s trailer. When he and Rocky arrive to collect gear for their Baja fishing trip, Rocky extracts part of the girl’s story, and then shames Jim into helping the child. To do that, he has to discover who’s chasing her father and why – and the girl is remarkably unhelpful, refusing to share even her name...
Rockford’s ex-girlfriend Sandy Baylock asks him to meet her for dinner. Rockford’s smart enough to guess she needs help, and he’s almost right: her father needs the help. Jim doesn’t understand what kind of problems “good old Charlie Baylock, the friendly bait salesman” might have. Soon enough, Jim learns. Three years ago, Charlie was a low echelon executive for an oil conglomerate, en route to a broken marriage and alcoholism – a different man. More by reflex than by plan, Charlie found a safe containing cash and pushed it out the window. Later, sober and terrified, Charlie put the money in a safety deposit box and quit his job to become a bait salesman. Now the statute of limitations has expired and Charlie wants to return the money. Jim agrees to help, and that pits him against kidnapping mobsters and obnoxious policemen – in particular, Lieutenant Dan Hall, who with a bit of legal chicanery just might link Jim to the original crime!
Jim’s friend Angel has dropped out of sight – it’s been three months since Jim saw him. Then he has lunch with his wiseguy friend David, and David says something strange: that Angel died. Shocked, Jim asks when and David tells him, “Tomorrow. Wednesday at the latest.” So Jim goes to Angel’s place and finds out Angel has moved to a penthouse in the Sunset Arms Apartments! Sure enough, there’s Angel in new, fancy clothes and at a new, fancy address. Jim digs, and learns Angel is sixty percent owner of the Indianhead River Land Development Company. More digging and a run-in with a mobster only reveal more questions. Who told Angel that some fertile land is dry and useless, and why? Why is an insurance man talking as though Angel were already dead? And how does it all fit together? Before long, Jim finds himself sought in connection with a murder – if he can’t puzzle this one out, Angel will die and Jim will end up back in the box!
Rocky returns home to an unpleasant greeting: two goons who force him to sign away oil and mineral rights to a parcel of land! Jim later discovers his father has been speculating in an oil parcel lottery run by the government. To learn why goons left his father for dead, Jim goes to Coulter City to meet Claude Orzeck, Rocky’s broker. There he discovers a new parcel Rocky just won on which rests a well that produces a great deal of oil. He also discovers Rocky signed his land over to an old man named Anderson who is a staunch opponent of oil drilling! Nobody in town knows anything about that well, and some men who might be a drilling crew seem to have vanished. Jim returns to Orzeck’s office and finds the man dead. Then the sheriff arrests him on suspicion of Orzeck’s murder. Once again, Jim finds himself required to ferret out the real culprit or face prison.
Jim returns from a successful fishing trip to some bad news: a subpoena to United States District Court. It commands his appearance but offers no explanation; he can consult with a lawyer outside the courtroom, but cannot have a lawyer inside with him. Prosecutor Gary Bevins believes a man named Frank Sorvino contacted Jim, but Jim has no idea who Sorvino is. The prosecutor accuses Jim of perjury and holds him for contempt. Beth frees Jim on a technicality, where he runs afoul of two thugs also interested in Sorvino. Bevins commands another appearance, but Jim still cannot answer his questions and finally loses his temper, lambasting Bevins. Jim goes back to prison, where Bevins leaves him in revenge for his courtroom conduct. Two inmates try to silence Jim; he barely escapes. Jim finally obtains a picture of Sorvino, enabling him to answer Bevins’ questions. But another attack in the prison laundry room nearly kills him.
Jim gets invited to Angel’s wedding – a hour and a half before it occurs. Angel marries a lovely Armenian girl, Regine, but this is the first her family knows about the marriage. It’s not the first they’ve heard of Angel. He and his partner Eddie were running a con on the Boyajians, pretending to represent a company interested in purchasing their land in an arrangement that cost them thousands in phony fees. When Eddie winds up beaten to death, Angel figures the Boyajians killed him, and rushes to marry Regine to turn their wrath. But the timing is wrong – the murder occurred before the Boyajians learned they had been conned. So someone else killed Eddie. Worse, Angel dropped Jim’s name during the con, so now both men face bunko charges, and maybe murder charges. Jim’s only choice is to figure out who killed Eddie and why. To do that, he feigns interest in the property figuring that might draw the killer’s attention. And it does...
Old Army buddy Al Brennan drops in for a visit. The next day, Marcy Brownell visits, hoping Jim will find her missing sister. But Jim doesn’t take missing persons cases, saying that most of the time, people who go missing do so because they do not wish to be found. Brennan then offers to help, revealing that he’s between work at the moment and thinks he can help. Reluctantly involved, Jim soon realizes things are not as they appear, when he confronts a collector of stolen art. Then Jim drops in on Marcy and someone cold cocks him, and he learns that his old buddy really came out to get a line on some missing art for an insurance company. Is Jim’s pal Al just using Jim to sniff out the goods, so he can collect the reward, or has he gone crooked?
Jim is investigating an insurance claim at a health club when a man named Murray Rosner guesses Jim might be a cop. And that makes Rosner nervous, because he’s working a deal with Ciro Lucas, the club’s owner. Lucas has Jim’s locker searched, and learns enough to send men to his home. Jim surprises them and they spattered him with a rock – which only serves to convince him that he’s stumbled onto something. Jim has just one lead: as he fell, he tore one attacker’s coat pocket and bottles of pills spilled out. The attackers failed to recover one bottle, giving Jim a name: Fred Molin. Jim follows Molin to the Beverly Sherwin Hotel where he collects Rosner. Jim follows the men quite a distance to a barn in the country, and there learns he’s stumbled into something worse than insurance scams: Rosner and Lucas are running guns! But as Jim digs, he discovers that Murray Rosner may be more than he appears.
A man crosses a parking garage, enters his car and begins to leave. Another car pulls behind him. A hand emerges from the second car, holding a pistol, and squeezes off several shots... Later, Beth’s nerdy cousin Warren finds Jim in a pool hall. Warren’s in “bad trouble” but before he can explain further, two men accost him. With a scream, Warren flees as Jim knocks the men down. Then Warren reveals that the men were police detectives! It seems the police want to question Warren about the death of Robert Bonner – a man with whom Warren had argued earlier that day. Jim has to deal with angry cops and with Beth, who pleads with him to look into the matter and clear her cousin’s name.
Jim goes to visit his friend Eddie Marks, whose kidneys are failing. There Jim discovers the hospital has denied Eddie medical assistance for a dialysis machine. Jim met Eddie, a confidence man, while in prison. Jim meets Eddie’s daughter Christine, who offers to front him $10,000 if he can find a high-stakes card game. She proposes that Jim win the $50,000 she needs to buy her father a dialysis machine by playing cards. Jim finds a game, and during it, masked man break into the room and steal everyone’s money! Blast Gillette, another player, figures Jim for the bird dog and threatens to punch his ticket. A note from Eddie warns Jim he “should have seen it coming.” To stay alive, Jim has to find Eddie and Christine, and then run a game on them to get Gillette’s money back.
Jim returns from vacation and discovers Billy Merrihew watching his trailer. Billy was a private investigator until he lost his license, and now he needs help from Jim. Investigating, Jim turns up two other investigators who have accepted work from Odette Sorrell and suffered for it – one has lost his license, and one likely soon will. And when Jim tracks down "Odette Sorrell", really Susan Hanrahan, a couple of goons roust him. Since “Odette Sorrell” is burning private investigators, Jim wants to go slow. But while he’s devising a plan two of the men decide to try their own stake-out – and one of them dies, apparently the victim of a burglary. Jim has to find a floor that doesn’t exist inside the world’s second largest detective agency to solve this one.
As Rocky visits his old friend T. T. Flowers, T. T.’s daughter and her husband arrive, along with people from Horizons Crest, a nursing home. They haul the old man away, claiming “diminished capacity.” Rocky wants Jim to investigate, but Jim considers it a family matter and legal. Finally, he agrees to look into it. After working his way around roadblocks, Jim visits T. T. at Horizons Crest and discovers him raving. Clearly, he has mental problems and may belong in an institution. So why, when Jim leaves Horizons Crest, does someone try to kill him? Returning to T. T.’s home, Jim discovers T. T.'s son-in-law ransacking the place, and a developer named Muellard who's also very interested in the properly. Jim has to figure out how all these people are related...
Faced with no other choices, Jim sneaks T. T. Flowers out of Horizons Crest, barely bluffing his way past the police. Jim tells T. T. that he and Beth will visit the courthouse in the morning while T. T. hides, and straighten things out. But T. T. does not trust lawyers, so he returns to his home, Freedom, and barricades himself in to keep the developer out. Jim tries, but is unable to persuade T. T. to leave his home. Finally, T. T. surrenders when the bulldozer leaves – and then he and Jim discover that all charges have been dropped. Muellard’s sinister smile conveys the reason: his plans for the old man no longer involve the courts. A small explosive severs the brake line on T. T. Flowers’ truck, and the accident kills Jim and T. T., leaving Muellard in the clear and Rocky to read eulogies...
Dennis finds himself called back to the station after a long work day. There he discovers that heroin has disappeared from the evidence room. Some has found its way into Dennis’ spare tire. Money is tight for Becker so the internal affairs detectives have a motive. Dennis persuades Jim to take a look, and Jim uncovers Mickey Golden and Willie Hatton. Jim finds Becker moonlighting at Century Cab and runs the names. Becker hares off after Willie Hatton; Jim can’t follow right away. When he finds Willie, “The Hat” is face down in the bathtub. Then someone smashes a chair over Jim’s head, and when Jim comes to, there’s a matchbook from Century Cab on the floor near him. Someone’s building a frame around Dennis, and maybe around Jim at the same time.
Jim’s old friend from “C” block, Gandolph Fitch, rolls back into his life. Fitch has lost his job as a bouncer for smacking around one too many folks, and wants to partner with Jim. But Jim doesn’t really need a hammer, so he hooks Fitch up with Marcus Hayes. Jim goes off to track down an heir for the county probate office. But Hayes uses what Fitch knows with his own skills to try for the same heir, figuring on a nice fat finder’s fee if he can get there first. Trouble is, no one thought to ask the most important question of all: where did the money originally come from? Asking that question might have prepared both detectives for the bent-nosed folks who really, really want their money back...
In halting English, Pham Van Mai asks Jim to find her missing brother Vinh. Jim suggests the police, who are better equipped for finding the lost. Offered cash, Jim reluctantly agrees to help. Vinh’s sponsor’s address is a vacant lot, but Jim continues to probe, and gets a reaction: he returns home in time to catch two men fleeing. They hit Rocky and ransacked Jim’s trailer. When Jim asks Mai what she has gotten him into, she only offers more money. The next day the goons return to ask Jim questions. Pressed, Mai says she doesn’t know the men, but she might know their motive: Vinh worked for an Army ranger camp in Vietnam, and when a Viet Cong rocket attack killed many Rangers, the survivors blamed him. But the truth may be more complicated...
On a bright Los Angeles Tuesday, Dennis responds to a hostage situation and ends up having to shoot the suspect. Meanwhile, Jim’s trying to trace a missing woman who fled New York. A couple of goons also want to know what he’s learned, prompting Jim to guess she might have good reason to stay lost. But when Jim tries to quit, his client Michael Kelly threatens to kill him! Later, Dennis meets with Lt. Chapman about the shooting, but Chapman clumsily maneuvers the conversation around to Michael Kelly, in whom the NYPD is interested. Chapman wants Becker to find out why Kelly contacted Jim Rockford. And through it all, a police groupie named Lianne Sweeny inserts herself into the case with lies and half-truths, creating havoc and endangering lives and careers.
Jim has got himself in the middle of an attempt by mobsters to find Patsy Fossler, whom they believe knows far too much about their activities. They’ve sent one of their own, Michael Kelly, and a couple of goons out to look. Fossler turned around and hired Jim, who didn’t know what he was buying. The New York Police have contacted the Los Angeles Police because anything Michael Kelly does interests them both – Kelly’s client is Joseph Minnet, a powerful New York crime boss. And police groupie Lianne Sweeny continues to insert herself into the middle of it, causing trouble and endangering lives.
Two masked men rob Gibby’s Place. Much later, Davey Woodhull has hired Beth to defend him. The police picked him up one day after the crime wearing a watch that matched the description of one stolen during the robbery. She believes the state has a good case but that Woodhull is innocent. Jim’s job is to find a key witness, Doreen Carpenter, whose testimony can clear Beth’s client. At the same time, the mysterious Harriet Beecher Foundation sends Beth strange gifts and harasses her. Jim eventually finds Doreen Carpenter and convinces her to testify, but a sniper kills her as they leave her apartment building! With Beth’s life and Davey Woodhull’s future on the line, Jim has to unravel this mess before the trial ends.
Two men break into Rocky’s house while Rocky’s on vacation. They’re looking for something and they don’t find it. The next day, Jim goes through Rocky’s mail looking for bills to pay and discovers an envelope containing $11,000 in cash! The envelopes keep coming, $11,000 each day without a note or a return address. Angel pinches a little bit of the money – too bad for him, since it’s marked money. Nabbed, he gives up Jim and Joseph right away. Federal agents come after the Rockfords, and so do some people who might be the original source of the money. And Jim can’t reach his father in Hawaii. Jim’s got to figure out what’s going on or Rocky faces fraud, tax evasion and murder charges!
Jim returns home from vacation ten days early and owing $600 to a Caribbean casino. When he gets there he finds his car destroyed and a lot of angry clients he never agreed to work for! They include an angry husband who accuses Jim of stepping out with his wife, and the disappointed owner of a cab company seeking help with extortionists. And then a truck brings thousands of dollars worth of forensic gear Jim doesn't need, but that his credit cards paid for! Then Jim learns the casino sold his debt to a local shark who has canceled the two week grace period, and someone in the cab company is connected to a racketeer! Jim will have to work hard – without pay – to get out of this jam!
Ann Clement has made herself wealthy writing books that purport to teach women how to make their marriages work. But in the age of feminism, there are those who don't want to hear what she has to say, and some of them might be violent enough to kill her. She asks Rockford to investigate several attempts on her life. Is the perpetrator some angry feminist? Or the husband who is tired of being the subject of her books, and who just might want her millions free and clear? Or is she, as the police believe, running an elaborate publicity stunt? Jim finds himself forced into the case when Dennis won't touch it, even after someone shoots at Ann Clement. Now all he has to do is figure out what's really going on, with only scant leads to point the way.
On the way to the ball game, Jim's day goes real bad when two squad cars full of policemen arrive at his trailer, to arrest him. And he has no idea what he's supposed to have done. Lieutenant Diehl is determined to bring him down this time – for the murder of Robert Reidy, committed with Jim's own gun! Did his new cleaning woman steal the gun? Jim begins to snoop around Reidy's part of town, and someone drops a hand grenade into his trailer! He gets the license number from the bomber's van, but it leads to a harmless old lady. He finds a connection to a man who owns a motorcycle dealership, and that man gets blown up! With his leads running out, Jim faces prison unless he can figure out who took his gun, and why the thief killed Reidy.
Gandolph Fitch rolls back into Rockford's life. He's found true love, a woman named Theda he met purchasing some used stereo equipment. She has a fine singing voice and Gandy invites his friend “Rockfish” to buy in, because he needs cash for a recording session. On the way out of the club, someone hits Gandy and drives off with Theda. Now Gandy needs Rockford to figure out why. Jim figures out who hit Gandy easily enough. It's her ex-husband Joe, who should still be in prison. But thanks to a man named Shapiro and the “Second Chances” program, he's out. And he needs something he left with Theda before he went in. When Jim and Gandy figure out what that is, they realize Theda's ex has dragged her – and them – into a major racketeering scheme.
Angel gets Jim in trouble again – this time, Angel hides some stolen silverware in Jim's trunk, and the pair of them wind up with mandated psychiatric counseling. There Jim meets a woman named Mary Jo, who believes someone is always watching her. She tries to hire Jim – but is she really being hounded, or is it all in her mind? Jim's not sure. Then Mary Jo returns home to discover a burglar going through her bedroom. He escapes, but the incident convinces Jim there might be more to her story than imagination. Digging, he turns up a man who might be a government agent, imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital, and a number of shady characters who want that man kept incommunicado. Has Mary Jo stumbled onto the wreckage of a failed intelligence operation?
A slimy comic hires Jim to retrieve a tape from his former partner but doing so gets him involved once again with mobsters.
Jim lets acquaintance “Sky Aquarian” use his telephone and his mailing address as a favor. That might be a bad idea, because a couple of thugs come looking for her. Jim tracks Sky to an ashram and then to Gordon Borchert’s consciousness collective before he finds her, and learns that one of her bosses gave her a package to deliver, and that she forgot to deliver it. Jim insists she show him the envelope, and when he opens it, he discovers $30,000 in cash. The next day, Jim sends the envelope back to Sky’s boss – but later learns what he mailed was newspaper clippings! Jim evades goons, discovers Skye can’t keep her mouth shut, and returns to Gordon’s collective to get the real money back, only to discover that Gordon has skipped to India...
Slimy Angel Martin is the prosecution's key witness against a hit man and he's milking it for all it's worth but when things go awry and the defendant is acquitted, it's once again up to Jim ot pull his old prison buddy's chesthuts out of the fire.
Prostitute Rita Capkovic is charged with the slaying of a customer who was actually killed by a mobster.
Angel Martin catches hs brother-in-law Aaron Kiel in an affari and holds it over his head. When Kiel gets appointed police commissioner Angel thinks he's in tall cotten and begins influence peddling. Needless to say, Angel's chicanery once again gets Jim into major league trouble.
Rockford is faced with losing everything he owns when he loses a civil case to a retired sheriff who's seemingly determined to get him out of the neighborhood.