It is a very hot summer in the city as the well known detectives of the 87th Precinct investigate serial rapes and a mysterious homicide (which do not appear to be connected). The women getting raped appear to be raped by a rapist who has raped them earlier and who was not caught. Detective Eileen Burke, who is working together with detectives Carella, Meyer and Brown, goes undercover and pretends to be one of the women who was raped earlier in order to lure out the rapist. Her boyfriend, Det. Kling, is not happy with her assignment.

In New York two detectives of the 87th precinct are initially baffled by the brutal, ritualistic slayings of several young women. Through good detective work and clues left at the crime scenes by the psychopathic killer, they are able to deduce who the killer's next victim will be. A tense chase ensues as they try to prevent him from continuing his bloody rampage

Once she'd been a dancer. Now she lies on a sidewalk, her blood seeping into the snow. The detectives of the 87th precinct are learning about ice: in a mulitimillion dollar showbiz scam, in the glittering diamonds that spill out of a dead man's vest, in the veins of a small time pusher. As the detectives scramble for evidence, as the city shivers, a killer is one step ahead, and the heat is still on.

A lawyer defends a man he's known since serving together in Vietnam, who has been accused of murdering three Vietnamese immigrants. Now he'll have to fight against a tenacious District Attorney, and evidence connected to the man's wife.