A young Arab woman is brutally raped and burned, and after identifying her, the detectives suspect her husband and mother-in-law. After a man accused of the murders of three Arabs, he claims that he was genetically and biologically predisposed to hatred and violence, but soon they uncover the real impetus to the slayings.

Detectives try to decipher a motive for the strangulation of a Bronx assistant DA in an area where hookers stroll. When the death of the prosecutor looks staged using information gleaned from a co-worker's caseload, Novak endangers her career to obtain a confession.

A boy is accused of being molested after his soccer game, but he doesn't admit to it. His principal and his soccer coach are the prime suspects.

The detectives and the district attorney get played first by the teenage murderer of a young boy, and then by the victim's father, who uses his professional expertise to escape punishment for avenging his son's death.

Doug Waverly and Nick Pratt are charged with rape and murder in the disappearance of Canadian student Jennifer Durning after Nick's cousin, Jason King, claims that while he had consensual sex with her that night the other two raped her. A stray pubic hair leads Novak to Keith Willis, a drunk who was paid off by the boys to get Jennifer out of the hotel and who later saw the boys kidnap her, but Willis exactly fit to be a witness as his mind has gone after years of alcohol abuse. Jason King disappears. Although they are able to find a bug in Donnelly's office, they are not able to prove that it was placed there by Pratt or Waverly. Judge Donnelly is forced to dismiss the case against the two boys since there is no case without Jason's testimony.

After Carolyn Pereira's body is dumped in an area frequented by prostitutes, Stabler and Tutuola soon realise she had far more money than a student on financial aid should have had, and learn that she was deeply involved in the worlds of online gambling and high stakes poker. Suspects include the Gloria Culhane, the roommate who ended up with the very expensive ring that Caroline stole from a star athlete, Roddy Franklin, the star athlete who had his ring taken by Caroline, and Adam Halder, Caroline's best friend from childhood who turned out to be her backup during her online gambling forays. Stabler makes a special plea for Halder, feeling like he and the young man have something in common because both were boys from the wrong side of the tracks dealing with rich kids who treated them like dirt.