A fellow Immortal, Greg Powers, invites MacLeod to his photography showing. At the gallery, MacLeod becomes deeply disturbed by the violent images of his friend's work, but what becomes more disturbing than the fact that Greg's personality has been replaced by that of a hardened cynic. As he reviews Greg's work, he comes across a photograph taken of himself 50 years ago which triggers a flashback of a time he spent with a young photographer, Linda Plager. In a chance meeting, the now 73 year old Linda recognizes Duncan as her old mentor and lover of 50 years ago, which thoroughly convinces her nurse that she's senile. Upon learning that Linda is dying, MacLeod longs to tell her the truth. Meanwhile, Greg seduces Richie into his destructive lifestyle and coaxes Richie into a dangerous motorcycle stunt. After a confrontation with Macleod, Greg snaps...frustrated by his inability to feel any real emotion because of the insulation from death his immortality gives him, he attacks Richie, an

MacLeod's old friend Tommy Sullivan is a scrappy little Irishman, a one-time boxer turned trainer, who can charm anyone into anything. He charms MacLeod into backing his current boxer and charms Charlie into playing Cyrano to help him woo a shy waitress. But when a rival manager who was trying to steal Sully's fighter turns up dead, MacLeod's opinion of his old friend begins to be altered forever.

Xavier St. Cloud returns, killing Immortals with the help of mortal mercenaries who shoot his prey, making his kill easy. His next target is MacLeod but, warned by Dawson, Mac and Charlie just manage to escape death -- though the dojo is all but destroyed in the gunfight. Renee Delaney, a CID agent investigating the mercenary angle, gets on the case. MacLeod goes after Xavier himself, and Charlie insists on coming along. During his battle with St. Cloud, MacLeod spots James Horton, the Hunter who killed Darius. Distracted, Mac is 'killed' and falls down an elevator shaft out of beheading range, and Charlie is badly wounded and lies near death. Blaming Dawson for helping Horton escape alive, MacLeod warns him not to cross his path again.

As Charlie regains strength, MacLeod accepts help from Dawson one last time, and barely misses catching Xavier and Horton. He then follows their trail to Paris -- accompanied by the persistent Renee Delaney. They track down Horton, and when he almost escapes, he is shot by Joe Dawson. MacLeod, with the help of his humorous new neighbor Maurice, then tracks down Xavier and finally takes his head. In a coda, however, we learn that Horton still lives.

Carl Robinson, the former slave turned baseball player, has finally found the good life as a Major Leagues star -- but when Carl is challenged by another Immortal and witnesses find him standing over the decapitated body, Carl is forced to go on the run from the cops. He turns to MacLeod for help when he is pursued by lawman Matthew McCormick, who has more than just a professional interest in taking Carl into custody.

Carolyn Marsh's latest best-seller is a hot and sexy romance novel featuring a smoky-eyed swashbuckling Highland hero named Duncan MacLeod. Both MacLeod and Terence Coventry, the Immortal depicted as the borish villain of the novel, are out tofind the author -- MacLeod to find out how much she really knows about him, and Coventry to kill her.