During his long career, bounty hunter Ralph "Papa" Thorson has caught over 5,000 criminals. Now, while he is working on apprehending fugitives in Illinois, Texas and Nebraska, he himself is being hunted by a psychotic killer.
Detective Ellery Queen has to solve a series of murders where the victims were killed in numerically descending ages, the male victims were strangled with blue cords and the female victims with pink ones.
A flamboyant criminal lawyer named Nick Hellinger takes on the case of a syndicate's accountant (actually a Justice Department agent who has infiltrated the mob) accused of murdering a local TV newscaster.
