With Detective Eames is on leave, Detective Goren is temporarily partnered with Detective Bishop as they track a double-crossing "Bonnie and Clyde" couple whose nine bloody victims include two undercover cops investigating a illegal gun-running ring. To gain a foothold on slim evidence that began in an auto paint shop, Goren focuses on one suspect's mental processes -- and knows that his female running mate is pulling the strings.
When an Argentine immigrant is found slashed and beaten in the family's bathroom, Detectives Goren and Bishop believe the wounds were self-inflicted -- but her husband's history of violence makes the police think he could have been responsible for other racially motivated murders that were discovered by his wife. But since they cannot implicate the suspect in his wife's death, Goren explores the family's tragic history on both sides and struggles to find a link to the kneecap-murders of a string of Jewish men.
When someone spikes the punch - leaving three dead in an isolated island church - Detectives Goren and Bishop first believe the murders are related to parishioner politics, but then discover a sorrowful sexual lifestyle among the town's jaded youth that points to three teenaged girls who might be connected to the drownings of three former lovers. The heady Goren uses his knowledge of "Siddhartha" to query one of the girls whose undying allegiance to a male classmate is harrowing.
When a wealthy father is found savagely beaten to death, Detective Goren and temporary partner Bishop find a family album of suspects, including the victim's soon-to-be ex-wife, a nanny who cared for the couple's adopted Romanian sons and a suspicious aunt and uncle. However, after Goren delves deeper into the family's past, his only hope of sorting out the jumble of possible killers is to call for a clan reunion -- in family court.
The cut up body of a pharmaceutical rep is found in his suitcases bound for Thailand, and the detectives must determine if it's related to tainted drugs or some other motive.
A musician is found brutally murdered in his recording studio. The detectives soon find a trail leading to a bizarre family of shrinks who are playing their own wicked game.
Goren and Eames take on a doctor whose belief in his own superiority is exceeded only by his brazen murders of his patients and helping himself to their jewelry.