After he gets into the head of an insane man driven to torture, murder, and cannibalism by overwhelming despair and loneliness, Goren surprises his colleagues with a passionate plea that the man be spared the death penalty, and engineers the confession that will save the man's life through a plea bargain.

When Goren and Eames search for a jewel thief who murdered her accomplice, they discover that the clever larcenies are the brainchild of her lover, Nicole Wallace, Goren's long-standing nemesis. As the detectives delve into the personal and working relationships between the two women, they uncover a plot to cause the death of Wallace's ex-husband, the only person who can lead them to evidence of the very first murder Wallace committed.

When a prison guard is murdered, Eames and Goren investigate, only to discover they've riled the feathers of Mike Logan, a Staten Island police officer who happens to be dating the nurse at the prison. Logan joins the duo to find out exactly what is happening at the prison.

Goren and Eames are frustrated when the law has no provision for the arrest of a man whose abusive control of his family and neglect of his severely depressed wife led her to several murder-suicide attempts which he did nothing to prevent, and eventually resulted in the deaths of three of his sons.

When Phoebe Morton is murdered on the phone with a 911 operator, Goren and Eames take the case and soon realize Morton is one of five women murdered with a similar bent, the killer known as Body By Jake (B.B.J.). Their investigation leads them to Keith Durbin, a recently released parolee who seems to be perfect. Goren has his suspicions about Durbin, who doesn't seem right to him, and when they learn that there are similar killings going much further back, Goren and Eames soon focus their attention on a new suspect, and soon realize that even though he's not guilty, Durbin is the key.

When the body of a man is found and it soon becomes obvious the body has been moved, Eames and Goren investigate the death of Walter Czabo, whose wife has been sleeping with a decorated former police officer who happens to have close ties to Deakins. The suspects start piling up, starting with Frank Adair and leading to his controlling publicist, but Deakins is reluctant to go after his friend, who wields a lot of local influence, without good, hard proof.

After a food critic is found beaten to death, Goren and Eames turn their suspicion to the chef at the last restaurant she visited. Unfortunately, Joshua Mailer has also gone missing, and their investigation then turns to his father-in-law, the owner and head chef of another very popular restaurant in the city. An off-the-cuff comment tips Goren off to the fact that not all is well in the Onorato household.

After Dennis and Camille Burnett are found dead in their home, the only survivor is their twenty-year-old daughter, Rachel. Goren and Eames initially suspect that someone connected with the Marinko family had the Burnetts killed, since they were in witness relocation, but the detectives soon realise that the connection isn't the parents, it's the daughter. Suspicion then turns to the daughter's biological parents and her birth father's very jealous wife.

A master thief who specialises in stealing antique silver from wealthy families across the country is finally captured after his pregnant wife takes desperate measures when an appraiser threatens to ruin her white-picket-fence dreams of the future.

The investigation into the deaths of a shock jock and the housekeeper who supplied the pain killers to which he was once addicted leads Goren and Eames to a detox clinic staff member whose mental illness hits Goren close to home.

A world-renowned physicist resorts to murder to avoid being humiliated by his failure to prove a controversial theory of quantum physics that he has spent his career espousing.

When Lisa Ross is brought into the emergency room with a severe case of cloracne, suspicion quickly turns to her husband Greg, a well-known dentist, especially after she dies. During their investigation, Goren and Eames hear whispers about Lisa's infidelities, but the real break comes with they learn that Lisa is not the first woman Greg Ross has been connected to who died of the same symptoms years earlier. After discovering Lisa's connection to Greg's former fiancée Morgan Dexler, Goren and Eames believe they have the answer, but they're not there yet.

After a young actress is gunned down after an evening out with her boyfriend, Goren and Eames initially focus their attention on a young man who had showed an unusual interest in the couple, but soon realise that there is more to this case than meets the eye. A jealous and seemingly obsessive ex-girlfriend, a best friend who never made it as an actor, and a grieving boyfriend who seems too good to be true lead Goren and Eames down another path, one where the key to exposing the truth about the present depends on exposing the lies of the past.

When a young woman is shot at an appointment she never should have been at, Goren and Eames investigate her death and learn she had received a kidney transplant a few years earlier. Initially they believe that Vanessa Nikos may have been killed so that her organs could be harvested, but soon learn that her death was more closely connected with the organ she initially received from living donor Boyce Wainwright. When her shooter, also awaiting an organ transplant, is also found dead, the police realise they're on to something.

When five young people are found dead by the tracks, Goren and Eames initially write them off as a suicide until their investigation reveals that one of the victims, Carmine Ruggiero, had no desire to be part of a suicide pact. Although initially they begin looking into a website that gives instructions on how to committ suicide, their investigation leads them to the unsolved suicide of Edie Elverson, one of Ruggiero's co-workers, whom he had once testifed against in a harrassment suit. Goren soon realises that another of the company's employees, Hubert Skoller, is trying very hard to push them to an answer.

The investigation into the death of a famous photographer leads to the discovery of multiple homicides committed by the collaborator on his latest project, who was attempting to exorcise demons from his past through an artistic expression the photographer soon found intolerable.

During the investigation into the deaths of several homeless people, Goren and Eames uncover a series of frauds that lead them to a woman in the early stages of dementia and the man who is willing to commit murder to demonstrate his devotion for her.

When Goren and Eames investigate the death of the new owner of a "little black book" once belonging to legendary playboy George Merritt, they uncover the marital indiscretions of a U.S. Senatorial candidate involving sex clubs.

Goren matches wits with a one-time chess prodigy who has become a fugitive when the body of a young woman is found tossed in the trash.

A woman con artist who hounded fantasy conventions is found dead, and the reason can only be discovered in the stifling confines of the small literary fandom her latest victim belonged to.

It's open season in New York when not one but two powerful judges are executed. At first they seem to have no connection; one was a family court judge whose entire family was attacked, the other is an appellate court judge. After investigating the judges more thoroughly, Goren and Eames realise that their first set of suspects was simply a smokescreen, and there is a far more insidious threat. Their investigation leads them to a non-custodial father who has a beef with the court system.

A nanny confesses to a murder and an attempted murder that she claims God told her to commit. The link is that both victims lived in the same building, which was poorly constructed, and were rumored to be having an affair.

When Goren and Eames investigate the death of a prominent atheist and her kidnappers, they discover that the crime, fueled by a need for sympathy and publicity as well as greed, began close to home.