Tobias Campion is happily settled as vicar at Moreton Priory. He finds the new lady living of Moreton Hall a charming and generous spirited member of his parish who is only too willing to help Tobias and his friend Dr. Hansard look after the less fortunate in the community. Lady Chase's nephew, Marcus Bramhall, however is another kettle of fish. No sooner has he moved his entire family into the Hall, under the pretence of concern for his aunt's recent widow status, than things start going awry.

Miss Southey, the Bramhall family's ill-treated governess, intrigues Tobias with her secretive ways. When a stranger's body is found in a river on the estate, Tobias and Hansard suspect foul play. Who is the man? Evidence suggests he has travelled a fair distance but why? When it appears he may have something to do with Lady Chase's lost son, and then Miss Southey mysteriously disappears, Tobias realizes he and Hansard may have to adopt their sleuthing cloaks once again....

Tobias Campion is happily settled as vicar at Moreton Priory. He finds the new lady living of Moreton Hall a charming and generous spirited member of his parish who is only too willing to help Tobias and his friend Dr. Hansard look after the less fortunate in the community. Lady Chase's nephew, Marcus Bramhall, however is another kettle of fish. No sooner has he moved his entire family into the Hall, under the pretence of concern for his aunt's recent widow status, than things start going awry. Miss Southey, the Bramhall family's ill-treated governess, intrigues Tobias with her secretive ways. When a stranger's body is found in a river on the estate, Tobias and Hansard suspect foul play. Who is the man? Evidence suggests he has travelled a fair distance but why? When it appears he may have something to do with Lady Chase's lost son, and then Miss Southey mysteriously disappears, Tobias realizes he and Hansard may have to adopt their sleuthing cloaks once again....

One cold, wet evening in an otherwise unusually dry April, a man falls from the fifth floor window of a hotel in Hythe. Did he jump or was he pushed?

Detective Chief Superintendent Fran Harman is already struggling to juggle her work and private life: she is having difficulties finding a company willing to restore her and her boyfriend's new home and has to put Mark up in her own cottage whilst the work is completed.

And now, why did this man jump from a hotel balcony when he had a perfectly good balcony at home?

A glitch with the water system and her boyfriend's troublesome daughter add more problems to Fran's lot. Can she find the time to discover what it is that appears not quite right about Alec Minton's death?...

When a colleague becomes seriously ill, Chief Superintendent Frances Harman has to delay her impending retirement to oversee an investigation into a recent spate of happy slappings and minor assaults in the Kent area. Initially, she begrudgingly takes a back seat in the case, but it is not long before she is once again perilously close to the action. The wave of assaults has ignited a media furor and Fran is concerned that an unnecessary atmosphere of mass hysteria is being generated in the area. She soon finds herself having to spend as much time trying to control the media as trying to catch the criminals. However, the local reporter that initially broke the story, Dilly Pound, may have personal reasons for taking such an avid interest in the case. As the crimes gradually escalate and the line between happy slapping and serious sexual assault becomes blurred, all mention of retirement is postponed until Fran can resolve the nightmare that has enveloped around her....