Chief of Detectives Larry Cole and investigative journalist Kate Ford team up again to face an ominous threat to the city of Chicago. Cole's inquiries into the recent strange deaths of criminals in booby traps lead him to Johnny Gault, a renegade scientist. Kate Ford's scrutiny of a shady business leads her to the same violent individual--a madman with a fondness for powerful explosives and deadly snakes who has already left a vast path of destruction behind him.