As the series begins, ex-race car driver Mark McCormick accepts a job driving the Coyote X, an experimental car designed by a friend of his named Flip Johnson. Mark loses his job, however, after Flip is killed in a car accident and ownership of the car is granted to industrialist Martin Cody. Barbara Johnson, Flip's daughter, refuses to accept her father's death as an accident and, believing that Cody murdered Flip in order to get the Coyote, asks Mark to steal the experimental car. Agreeing, Mark sneaks into Cody's compound and steals the car. The next morning, the police, who identified Mark when he stopped to save a police officer's life, move in and arrest the ex-race car driver. To Cody's regret, the police are unable to locate the Coyote. Brought before Hardcastle, who is presiding over his last case, Mark is given a choice: help the judge round-up two hundred men who walked out of the judge's courtroom on technicalities are go back to prison. Carefully considering his options, M

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Hardcastle is quite upset when he is criticized in Without Sin, the autobiography of retired mobster Joseph Cadillac. Figuring that the mob, also the subject of Cadillac's criticism, will be angered as well, Hardcastle has Mark follow the author. Mark's surveillance turns into a full blown car chase after Cadillac realizes that he is being tailed. Based on his driver's reckless driving, Cadillac is pulled over by the police and his car is impounded. Later, Hardcastle is surprised when Cadillac comes to him for help. Upon learning that the mob has kidnapped Cadillac's innocent son (a priest) in order to get the evidence the mobster used to write the book, Hardcastle agrees to help. One complication: The evidence is in the car that the police impounded (pending a judge's ruling regarding the legality of a search). Deciding that a life is more important than the letter of the law, Hardcastle breaks into the impound yard and retrieves the evidence. With evidence in hand, Hardcastle and Cad

Hardcastle wants to investigate a woman named Tina Grey. It seems that a lot men die whom she was ""with"". When Hardcastle goes to the police for info, a Captain Filapiano, who doesn't like Hardcastle asks him to leave. Hardcastle then tells McCormick to get close to her. As they get closer, a gangster named Joe Beiber, whom she has been seeing, and who is insanely jealous abducts them. When Hardcastle goes to Filapiano to find out what's going, he discovers that she is The Black Widow, a former prostitute turned police informant. She works for Filapiano, and part of their arrangement is that in exchange for getting info on certain criminals, she frames someone close to the criminal she is working on, or someone who had access to the info she was going to get. Beiber was her latest target but her fall guy was killed by Beiber before she could get what she was suppose to. So Filapiano suggest that they use McCormick. Hardcastle saves McCormick and Tina's implicating Filapiano and Hardcas

While attending business downtown, Mark rushes to the aid of a woman being attacked by men in a mail truck. While he thinks he can find safety from the police officer reponding to their call, the woman informs him the officer is actually a member of an unofficial "underground" police and they are far from being safe.

Hardcastle cuts his fishing trip short when he receives word of the death of his old girlfriend's current husband. After deciding to check up on her, he is shot as he interrupts a burglar at her house, who looks like the deceased husband.

With the judge's birthday coming up, Mark decides to unofficially help him close a cold case related to a soon-to-be-paroled crimial that Hardcastle put in jail for another crime. Unfortunately, the new trial winds up with Hardcastle being shot and the criminal escaping.

On vacation, Hardcastle travels down to Canary Creek, California to participate in an annual fishing contest. To Hardcastle's surprise, Tina Cutter, the local sheriff's sixteen year old daughter, accuses him of rape. While transporting the judge to jail, Sheriff Dale Cutler tries to kill him. Thanks to Mark's timely arrival, the sheriff is forced to postpone his assassination. Realizing that the judge is in mortal danger, Mark, posing as a drunk, breaks his friend out of jail. Once free, Hardcastle begins to question why Tina framed him. Recalling an earlier meeting with the sheriff, Hardcastle, who has concluded that Tina's own father set up the false rape, realizes that he had mentioned a plane he came across while fishing. Returning to the fishing site, Hardcastle seeing the sheriff and some of the local residents dismantling the plane, ascertains that the sheriff had discovered a downed drug transport. Following the sheriff, Hardcastle and McCormick watch as the residents try to sell the drugs to a major dealer. With the help of a conveniently located forklift, Hardcastle and McCormick manage to capture the sheriff and the dealers. Later, once the sheriff's plans have been exposed, Hardcastle is cleared of the rape charges.