Once again, I felt very satisfied watching this episode of "Police Story" because the plot was so very different from those in other cop shows. And, it was awfully entertaining as well.
John Saxon stars as Detective Cavelli--a cop who works undercover. His latest case involves some scum-bags who work for a department store chain. Their scam involves finding shoplifters with records trying to rip off the store and then having them come to work for them--using fake credit cards to scam their stores! But this isn't all of it--these guys are seriously dangerous and have even killed several of these shoplifters! This is obviously a super-dangerous case, as Cavelli is posing as a career shoplifter and has infiltrated their organization. While this is pretty intense, it's even tougher for Cavelli because he's trying to balance all this with his screwed up home life. He's divorced and his daughter is coming for a visit--but he's so under cover that he can't break cover to spend time with her.
All in all, extremely well written and very tense--especially with the scary ending. Well worth seeing and one of Saxon's better roles.
By the way, Tina Louise plays one of the gang members and the leader is played by Rory Calhoun. Howard Duff plays Cavelli's boss.