A rape victim is found dead at the bottom of an airshaft of an abandoned building in the Alphabet City section of the lower east side of Manhattan. She is the fourth young lady from the mid west, who has come to NewYork City seeking employment, and has met the same fate The pressure on the NYPD to end this string of horrendous crimes is growing. Ian MacDonald, a senior trial assistant district attorney in the homicide bureau of the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney's Office and Emily Bird, the head of the sex crimes unit of the same office, head up a task force with the NYPD to investigate and apprehend the perpetrators. At the same time there is a brilliant young inmate awaiting trial at Rikers Island. He has dreamed up a scheme to bring the courts to a stand still. He has got to be stopped before he succeeds in causing the collapse of the City's criminal justice system.