"Who butchered a troubled young priest in his own church? Did an overzealous gang of neighborhood Satanists have a hand in the the bloody business? Or were there even darker doings behind the ornate closed doors of St. Catherine's? In a parish torn by sin, violence, drugs, racial tension and poverty, the cops of the 87th Precinct must throw the first stone -- and hope it makes ripples in a bizarre and baffling case that will test their faith, their...

The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby apartment in the 87th Precinct leads detectives Carella, Meyer, Brown, and Weeks to the discovery of an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug, and a killer.

When Detective Steve Carella, investigating two baffling murders, discovers that his major leads are coming from a beautiful psychic, he abandons standard police procedures for the eerie world of the occult.

When a sniper begins gunning down cops from the 87th Precinct in cold blood, it's up to Detective Steve Carella to sort out who and why, before he finds himself on the wrong end of the killer's .45.

After Fat Ollie Weeks arrests a corrupt book publisher, he tries his hand at writing his own crime novel. Just moments after Fat Ollie has finished his opus and is on his way to his agent, he catches a squeal -- a murder case in the 87th. After investigating the crime, he returns to his car to find it broken into and the manuscript -- his only copy -- gone.

Alone in New York on business, Benjamin Thorpe spends the night in a search for female companionship, a quest that leads to a confrontation in a midtown bordello and his involvement in the murder of a young prostitute.