Psychiatrist Eric Techman calls Burke to report that he fears one of his patients is a homicidal maniac who plans to kill him. Before he can identify the person in question, he is shot in the back. Burke convinces both Techman's secretary and his wife to not reveal the fact of the kind doctor's murder until Burke can question the five most likely patients: a stripper, a movie starlet, a Texas oil millionairess and her wild son, and a ski instructor (and sometime kleptomaniac).

When the president of a bank is shot during a robbery, the only description Burke can get of the killer is that he was ""just ordinary"". Burke interviews a man who passed out during the robbery, and hunts for clues with a local bookie. After the two other bank robbers are slain, Burke investigates the bank president's wife and son, his very flirtatious secretary, his business partner and his accountant, and a beautiful B-movie star. Just as Burke is about to arrest the man who shot the bank president, the killer is himself slain - but by whom? And why?

After a party celebrating his marriage to an Italian movie starlet, producer Marty Kelso falls down a flight of stairs and gets a letter opener stuck in his neck. His bodyguard/manservant calls the police and informs Burke that Kelso's three ex-wives (a former Olympic star, a screenwriter and a failed actress) were at the party, along with the Olympic star's surly husband and a film director. Clues pop up at the oddest times and in the most curious places. Les and George each claim the other overlooked vital information. Several people had good motives to murder Kelso, but Burke knows that just because a suspect seems obvious doesn't mean there might not be a set-up in the works.

When pop artist Andy Zygmunt is discovered impaled on one of his works, Burke finds that several of Zygmunt's paintings contain materials used in a blackmail scheme. A vicious practical joker, the victim was hated by one and all: his sexy assistant, a former girlfriend (and fellow artist), the nasty host of a kiddie show, the head of a fashionable dog grooming salon, the scion of a wealthy family, and the arrogant owner of the art gallery (who also stars in a TV cop show that Burke despises).

When an old flame of Burke's is gunned down, he uncovers the darker side of her relationship with several men. The former chauffeur for the victim's father, an old friend of the family, an philandering astronomer and his embittered wife, a free-wheeling B-girl, a vulgar jazz trumpeter - any one could have killed ""my girl"". The truth may lie in Diana's little black book. Les and Tim are worried that Burke is too close to the case to handle it rationally. Burke refuses their help. Only after he is attacked in his own home and, later, is forced to hear the truth about Diana's past, does Burke realize who the killer is, with the help of Les's wristwatch.

An up-and-coming actress dies while surfing, apparently from an obscure medieval poison. But how was it administered? When Burke is faced with an unfamiliar milieu, he sends Tim undercover as a surfer. The victim's grasping mother, a famous novelist, the one-armed owner of a beachfront bar, not one but two bikini-clad young women, and the owner of a surf shop, who had been having an affair with the victim, all come under suspicion. A speargun shoots a little too close to home before the killer is finally uncovered.

A hotel tycoon is electrocuted while climbing out of his swimming pool. A scrap of plaid cloth from a coat lining and a St. Christopher's medal are Burke's clues as he investigates the passengers on a round-the-world flight the tycoon was planning, including the lovely tour guide, a presidential candidate, the victim's drunken ex-mistress, a high-powered wheelerdealer and a fleeing embezzler. Just to make matters worse, Tim is attacked and kidnapped by a huge man and Burke is told that unless he lets the flight continue as planned, Tim will die.

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