Homicide detectives Ryan Walker, Nora Houghton and Lt. Ben Carroll try to close a string of strangulation murders. Carroll and his divorced wife, Bonnie, decide to stop sleeping together. She confides in him that she's seeing another man. Walker jeopardizes the investigation when he begins seeing a conniving television reporter.

Walker is assigned to head up a task force on the strangler. Nora's brother Jack steals information and leaks it to the reporter Holly Bennett after she seduces him. Bennett places herself in harm's way when she agrees to meet the strangler. When Nora and Walt are ambushed, Nora shoots the gunman in Chinatown shoot-out, but also inadvertantly shoots and wounds Walt. This prompts Nora to consider leaving the force.

Ryan meets a woman, Robin Moore, who believes she's being stalked and may be The Strangler's next victim. She agrees to be the ""bait"" and Ryan traps The Strangler. Nora and Walt investigate the death of a man who fell out of a tenth floor window and at first it is thought to be suicide. Ben and Nora re-examine the suicide, uncovering a murder instead.

Ben, Ryan and Nora investigate the apparent hate-crime murder of a Jewish boy, but discover it's more complicated and that it might have been the work of some well-off teenagers. When an unidentified beggar is murdered, Walt becomes obsessed with finding out his identity.

Ben resists D.A. Simon Kingsley's pleas to arrest a teenager for murder. Ryan investigates the case. Walt runs across a multiple murderer while in the hospital for surgery.

Ryan and Ben investigate the death of a 15-year-old call girl. Walt and Nora look into the murder of an elderly man made up to look like a suicide. Ben's wife informs him she's moving to Florida, and taking Ben's child with her.