A small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation, Stafford Lee Penney, Mississippi's #1 lawyer who has never lost a case, when his wife is scandalously killed, spirals into a legal and personal legal streak, ruining his career, and making him the nation's #1 suspect.
Detective Alex Cross, intending to resign from the Washington D.C. Police Force, agrees to take on one more case when his friend and partner John Sampson asks for his help in clearing an old Vietnam buddy who has been framed for the murders of three women.
Detective Alex Cross is investigating a string of murders when his fiancée is kidnapped, and soon he becomes obsessed with finding the homicidal maniac who is trying to ruin his life.