Four years after the end of World War II, former Army Ranger Eli Rico is back to work as a Homicide Detective in the city of New York.

Rico's world is a bleak and dark place as he suffers from emotional scars from the war that influence his every day life and his job in homicide. Plagued by nightmares, Rico has little in the way of friends or a social life outside of his parents. The only woman in his life is a high class, East Side call girl named Mavis.

When a millionaire businessman is murdered in the parking garage of his exclusive West Side apartment building, Rico is at a loss to explain certain things. The man wasn't murdered for money and apparently had no enemies. A weapon wasn't used to kill him and the cause of death is a broken neck. Rico recognizes the technique as one taught to him in Ranger school called the Ranger Choke Hold, a fighting move taught nowhere else.

A second victim and then a third is soon found, all murdered in the same fashion. It is apparent a serial killer is loose in New York City and is selecting victims seemingly at random. Rico must find a pattern if he is going to stop the murderer before another victim is killed.