Scobie Malone is called in on an easy case. Norma Glaze is found strangled in her bedroom and her husband, Ron, has disappeared. All evidence points toward the husband, so Malone puts the case aside. But the scene from the night before tells the real story, a one-night stand gone bad and a killer with a twisted claw of a right hand.

Four years later, Ron Glaze is on trial for murder, and the prosecution is brilliant young Tim Pierpont, a family man and friend to Malone, who also happens to have a twisted claw of a right hand. A witness comes forward, implicating Pierpont in the murder. Malone doesn't buy it, but could it really only be a coincidence? Herein begins Dilemma.