THE HIT A male Caucasian has been shot dead in a Hell's Kitchen alley-that's what the report says. But once the police hit the scene, the word hits the street: the dead man is a cop. A big shot from Internal Affairs. THE HUNT The official story says the shooter was a local lowlife. But Detective Joe Dante has other ideas-and lots of ugly questions. Dante knows the victim had plenty of enemies, and most of them are members of the force. Was the murdered cop ambushed by one of his own? THE HEAT Now the department is closing ranks, the unmistakable stink of corruption is in the air, and it looks like Dante's hunches are right on the money. To smoke out the killer, Dante's prepared to put every cop in New York on the hot seat-and his own life on the line: Because whoever gunned down one cop in cold blood is prepared to do it again. MID-TOWN NORTH Christopher Newman returns to the beat he knows best in a big, nerve-splitting police novel that tells the raw truth about law out of order.