A series of deaths have started occurring in New York; Some are being found mutilated while others have an equation wÎ"z = Cov (w,z) = ßwzVz carved onto their skin. As police investigate they discover each victim was forced to choose between sacrificing their own life or a loved ones' life. Before long it becomes clear that this perpetrator has suffered just such a similar fate...so now is coping by seeking a way of solving this philosophical enigma, can Captain Maclean and his officers such as Eddie Argo and his new partner Helen Westcott stop this suspect, because he/she won't not until he/she gets to the end of this equation.

Grief, guilt, and betrayal. In North London, a young mother dotes on her four-year-old son and lives in a modest flat with her husband, a cop in the bomb squad. The Arsenal football team is their religion. On May Day, a major terrorist attack brings tragedy while she is in the arms of a rich reporter who lives over the road. She wishes she were dead. In grief and guilt, she pursues revenge, faces betrayal, experiences delusions, and may be suicidal. Two men seek her affection: the reporter and a colleague of her husband's who imagines caravan camping with her on a beach. In London, the city of the Great Fire and of Hitler's bombardment, is there any way back to life for her?