A teenager's need for parental love, acceptance, and recognition sets in motion the events leading to the deaths of 23 concert-goers in a blaze started by a rock band's illegal pyrotechnics.

The husband of a woman whose partially decomposed body is found floating in the Hudson River becomes the prime suspect in her murder until the prosecutors uncover a connection between her prospective attorney and a judge who has heard a suspiciously high number of his cases.