In Seattle, the successful forensic psychiatrist and college professor Jack Gramm is in evidence since he was responsible for the condemnation of the serial killer Jon Forster, influencing the jury to sentence Forster to death row. Forster accuses Gramm of manipulation, inducing one witness and the sister of one of his victims to testify against him.
On the eve of Forster's execution, Gramm receives a phone call telling him that he has only eighty-eight minutes of life left. Meanwhile, someone is copycatting Forster, killing women with the same modus operandi and is being investigated by the Seattle Slayer Task Force.
With the support of associate Shelly Barnes, an FBI agent, plus his friend Frank Parks and his assistant Kim Cummings, Gramm investigates some weird and problematic students, a security guard of the campus and the woman with whom he had a one-night stand as his 88 minutes continue to tick off the clock.