It began when three people were found killed in northern New Jersey, then three in Manhattan, and another in the Bronx in a thirteen-month period. All of them were hung up with strings attached to their limbs, like puppets. The New Jersey State Police had started calling him Howdy Doody, after the famous TV puppet. Several months after he is caught, State Police detective Mo Ford finds another victim killed and arranged in exactly the same way. Is it a copycat crime or did the police catch the wrong man?