"Murder touches everyone's lives. Not just the victim." This offhand remark from DCI Jim Taggart will be proved right when a jogger discovers a strangled body of a young, blonde woman lying near a river. This will prove to be only the first, of potentially dozens, killed by a maniac loose on the streets of Glasgow. Among the people whose lives will be irrevocably changed are Charlie and Patricia Paterson, a bitter married couple who intentionally hurt one another by openly cheating with younger, better-looking partners; Liz Boyd, a newlywed who discovers her husband Michael has a sick fascination with the murders; Alec McGowan, a convicted rapist running a local store with his devoted sister Wilma trying to maintain a low profile; and that of DCI Jim Taggart himself, as the street-wise Glaswegian copper will have to learn to work with his new partner, public school boy DS Peter Livingstone in order to catch the killer before he or she kills again.