National TV news anchor Mackenzie Dennis takes a dive from his Upper East Side apartment, and his suicide seems confirmed by the videotaped message he leaves behind - until homicide detective Jimmy Montone examines the tape and discovers the shadow of a hangman's noose on the wall. Piecing together the evidence, Montone proves the anchorman didn't jump; he was pushed.

The case swerves unexpectedly closer to home when a beautiful model intimate with Montone is found hanged, having left behind a similar taped suicide message.

When retired Scotland Yard inspector Peter Henshaw contacts Montone to warn him about Terence Keyes, the British writer who has been riding along with the detective to research a book on police procedure, Montone is at first incredulous. But troubling secrets from Keyes's past mesh with what Montone knows about the "suicide" murderer. Could the polished, genteel Keyes be the killer? Or is Henshaw simply a zealous retiree with too much time on his hands?

Montone is left to puzzle it out, unaware that he himself is the killer's ultimate target.