Four women, working together, solving crimes.

Now, if you threw a hunky man into this television mix, there likely would be the standard cliched sexual tension between the dude and at least one of the babes.

"Oh, no, no, no -- there's a lot of sexual tension between all four of us," protested Angie Harmon, the star of the new series Women's Murder Club, which debuts tonight on E! and ABC.

To which co-star Paula Newsome added, "Leave me alone, Angie. Leave me alone!"

Harmon is married and has two young kids with former NFL player Jason Sehorn, so Newsome probably is safe, at least for now.

But it's the criminals who aren't safe in Women's Murder Club, given the combined on-screen skills of Harmon (who plays a homicide inspector), Newsome (a medical examiner), Aubrey Dollar (a crime reporter for a newspaper) and Canadian Laura Harris (an assistant district attorney).

Set in San Francisco, these four accomplished women secretly help each other professionally. But each of them has her own back-story, which pleases Harmon to no end, given the limitations of her signature role as assistant D.A. Abbie Carmichael on Law & Order from 1998 to 2001.

"The last show, as we all know, is very procedural and all of that," Harmon said of Law & Order.

"It's a wonderful show, but there are no back-stories. There is nothing that you are able to expand on as far as characters.

"As an actor you become frustrated because there are muscles that you don't ever exercise. You never know, why do we come to work in a bad mood? What happened at home that night? After a while, you start to hunger for that. You really want it."

That said, if you appreciate the format of the various Law & Order franchises, or the various CSI franchises, you needn't worry that Women's Murder Club is too much like Sex And The City with corpses.

"In this, you know, just as much procedure is there, but it is also equally character-driven," said Harmon, a 35-year-old native of Dallas.

"So there was no question when they asked if I would do this. Hopefully it's as enjoyable to the audience as it is to the actor."

And just for the record, males actually do appear from time to time in Women's Murder Club. It's not the TV-drama version of Lilith Fair.

"There are men in the show and we each have relationships," Harmon said. "Actually, the story is basically about that, how our jobs coincide with what we have going on in our personal lives.

"For example, my character, she's great at her job, but she's horrible at her life."

Well, one out of two ain't bad.

As for Harris, the 30-year-old product of Vancouver has an even clearer attitude about the premise and anatomical makeup of Women's Murder Club.

"I love chicks, they rock," Harris said. "As many chicks as possible, I'm very happy. That's how I feel about it."

Hey, me too!