When the beautiful detective Inspector Francis Grey was assigned the first case of murder involving this killer she had no idea what was to come. It was a brutal attack on a woman by her own husband, who hacked her to pieces with a garden sickle; nasty, yes, but this proved to be just the beginning. Several more followed and to titillate the mind of the young Inspector, with every killing the killer left a trademark, ‘The Adjudicator’, usually written in blood. Yes, this fiend certainly had a shrewd, calculating mind and was also a very elusive character, another attribute usually possessed by this type of killer. But what about the type that continue their spate of butchery even when caught, found guilty in court and imprisoned? Impossible, you say; apparently not.
The case continues with twists and turns, pointing one way and then the other, until finally Fran and her doting young sergeant Len begin to think it will surely be impossible to stop this maniac, especially when the general pattern of the case is disrupted by a seemingly unrelated outbreak of similar killings.
Priests, bent cops, perverts and prostitutes all come into the picture until finally, when the station commander DCI Lawson is on the point of admitting defeat and calling for the aid of Scotland Yard, the case is cracked, blown wide open by the most unexpected revelation imaginable for them all.