Brilliant, decisive, and hard-charging, Deputy Inspector Allhoff was the NYPDÕs ace detective until bullets from a mobsterÕs machine gun robbed him of his legs, his career, andÑin the opinion of an associateÑhis sanity. Yet Allhoff was too good a man to be put out to pasture, so New YorkÕs police commissioner found a way to keep him employed and refer to him such cases as the department couldnÕt or wouldnÕt handle. Confined to a wheelchair and operating from a seedy tenement flat, Allhoff is assisted by two cops: Battersly, the rookie patrolman whose brief moment of cowardice cost the inspector his legs, and Simmons, the bitter career cop who detests Allhoff but sticks with the embittered cripple to protect his own pension.