Julian Weizak, an obituary writer in New York, celebrates his birthday alone in a bar on New Year's Eve. At the stroke of midnight, scores of homicides break out on the East Coast.
In all, twenty thousand murders are committed that night in New York alone, with the epidemic spreading across the country and the world, time zone by time zone. Julian makes a startling discovery: the crisis day was every single murderer's birthday. At midnight each day thereafter, nearly twenty million people around the world become homicidal maniacs, contributing to the biggest killing spree in history. It looks as if the chaos can lead to only one end: the extinction of humankind.