In the wake of the abduction of a woman and her two young daughters, deputy chief Lucas Davenport faces the most challenging case of his career, while the victim, psychiatrist Andi Manette, applies all her skills to outwit her captor.

The "maddog" murderer who is terrorizing the Twin Cities is two things: insane and extremely intelligent. He kills for the pleasure of it and thoroughly enjoys placing elaborate obstacles to keep police befuddled. Each clever move he makes is another point of pride. But when the brilliant Lieutenant Lucas Davenport--a dedicated cop and a serial killer's worst nightmare--is brought in to take up the investigation, the maddog suddenly has an adversary...

After a notorious woman bank robber is killed in a shoot-out with a Minneapolis police team headed by Lucas Davenport, her husband vows to avenge her death by learning the names of the cops responsible and murdering their loved ones.

At 1:15 a.m, a Minnesota political fixer answers his doorbell. The next thing he knows, he's waking up on the floor of a moving car, lying on a plastic sheet, his body wet with blood. When the car stops, a voice says, "Hey, I think he's breathing," and another voice says, "Yeah? Give me the bat." And that's the last thing he ever knows. Lucas Davenport is investigating another case when the trail leads to the man's disappearance, then--very troublingly--to...

Lucas Davenport chases an insane pathologist who has been conducting experiments on his dying victims in New York. Lucas teams up with policewoman Lily Rothenburg to find him.

"In a wealthy Minneapolis neighborhood, two elderly women are bludgeoned to death. They are apparent victims of a random robbery, though nothing of value appears to have been stolen. But when Lucas Davenport looks deeper, he fears that the victims weren’t so random, and the items stolen were far from invaluable. As a pattern emerges it leads Lucas to…certainly not where he expected. Which is too bad, because the killers are expecting him. And...

Lucas Davenport's wife, surgeon Weather Karkinnen, becomes a key witness when the getaway car from a botched robbery almost collides with her, making Weather a target for the criminals, who will stop at nothing to keep her quiet, leaving Lucas to protect his wife and solve the case before he loses everything.

Lucas Davenport investigates a series of stabbing murders, while still recovering from his near-fatal wounds of the year before and at the same time trying, for once in his life, to settle down with one woman.