After his wife is murdered by street punks, a pacifistic New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad, prowling the streets for would-be muggers after dark.

A young nihilistic New Yorker copes with pervasive urban violence, obscene phone calls, rusty water pipes, electrical blackouts, paranoia, and ethnic-racial conflict during a typical summer of the 1970s.

Dr. Bock, the chief of medicine at a Manhattan hospital, is suicidal after the collapse of his personal life. When an intern is found dead in a hospital bed, it…