It was the second worst day of William Dawson's life when his wife told him she was pregnant. The problem was, she didn't know he was sterile, a fact he didn't tell her because of the trauma it caused him in his early years (the worst day) and because not having kids was an agreement of their marriage. He pretended to be happy, but he followed her to find out who her lover was and made plans to kill them both. As a normal, nonviolent man, he couldn't believe the rage he had and the desire to all of a sudden kill someone.
After tracking him down, he discovered her boyfriend was a police detective she often worked with on court cases. She was an ADA for the San Francisco District Attorney's Office. A very lucky situation came up almost out of the blue. The police department warned his wife that a parolee who was just released from prison, whom her boyfriend had arrested and she prosecuted, was telling everyone who would listen that he was going to get even with the detective who arrested him. They warned her to be very careful as he might be after her also.
Dawson immediately came up with a plan to kill the detective and blame it on the parolee. He took his time to track down Angelo Cifforelli, better known as "Angel." During all this, Dawson starts thinking about the guy who ran his parents off the road and killed them. All of a sudden, that was all he thought about--killing his wife's lover, the guy who caused his parents' death, and his loving wife. He was also an attorney, very smart, very successful. If he used his head, he could pull off the perfect murders.