A bookshop owner is murdered and Wycliffe discovers all is not well in the family.

A wealthy novelist points Wycliffe in the direction of a serial killer with a taste for theatrics.

An amateur flautist is shot with his own gun on the wealthy Bottrell family's land, but Wycliffe suspects this supposed suicide is not what it appears.

Wycliffe investigates the murder of a local undertaker who was swapped out for the usual life-size effigy villagers light aflame and hurl into the sea every year as part of an ancient ritual.

Wycliffe must find the connection between a runaway pregnant teenager and the corpse of an old woman locked in her own freezer.

A reverend discovers the body of the famously lustful church steward posed deliberately in front of the altar, but Wycliffe suspects a motive more practical than simple conservative disapproval.