Elizabeth Baur

After forty years of good and faithful services, Robert T. Ironside, reprocessed police force of San Francisco, is finally on the point of tasting with the joys of a rest deserved well with Katherine, his wife, in their vineyard recently bought. However, a few days after his official departure, he is contacted by persons in charge for the police force of Denver, which offers the post of general manager temporarily to him their services, following the assassination for preceding occupying of the station in question. Initially reticent, Ironside ends up yielding and, with the agreement of his wife, agrees to take up the challenge, the more so as he has pleasure to find Susan, the girl of the one of her former assistants.

1962년 6월, 보스턴의 한 아파트에서 한 여인이 누군가에게 목이 졸려 살해된다. 디나탈리 형사를 비롯한 수사진이 나서지만 단서는 없다. 그런데 곧 같은 수법의 교살 사건이 5건이나 계속되자 존 보텀리가 수사 본부장으로 임명된다.