When a loan shark working for the Russian mobster named Perun shows up dead at the Gotham City Dock, Batman takes on his alter ego of Gary Peterson, forensic analyst to get a look at the scene first hand. The loan shark (a man by the name of Donny Lucido) is the third victim to be killed by being burnt alive after having a piece of his face sliced away. The newspapers have dubbed Gotham's newest serial killer Grotesk and Batman is unable to find any connection to the two previous murders - an employee for Omnimed (a medical research facility) named Jaqui Tremayne and an upper middle class business man named Georg Williamson.