Pascoe returns home for the grand country wedding of a school friend. Soldier Ian Henslowe is marrying Jill Lowry, favourite daughter of wealthy farmer Ted Lowry. The reception is disrupted by the discovery of a dead body in the Lowry's pig sheds. The victim is Ian's best friend, fellow soldier Martin Wilkie.

Dalziel, who's just returned from a hospital check-up for his dodgy heart, arrives to investigate. Ian's devastated when Jill admits that she was having an affair with Wilkie. Dalziel and Pascoe visit Wilkie's regiment and his home, only to find that it has just been ransacked and set on fire by an intruder; Dalziel tells Pascoe he is too close to the suspects to stay on the case; instead he can remain at his parents' and hope to pick up gossip.

Pascoe does not get on with his father, who has always resented his son's decision not to go into farming, especially after the recent hardships of the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Instead, Bill Pascoe has relied for help on Pascoe's cousin, T

Dalziel checks out of hospital after a heart attack and is at home, bored, when a murder takes place at a posh health spa. He checks himself in there to investigate. Soon another murder takes place - are the two related?

A paralyzed girl is miraculously healed after sitting under a tree in the woods near her home. Later the same tree yields the body of a young girl killed a long time ago. This leads Dalziel into a web of abuse by the Catholic Church, including the practice of splitting up families and making youngsters slave labour on church farms. In the village Dalziel bumps into his sister, who is trying to find her brother, that Dalziel knew nothing about. And she has news for him that breaks his heart.

Dalziel and Pascoe attend a retirement party for a senior colleague, Donald Fitzgerald. Dalziel's distinctly unhappy. He cannot forgive Fitzgerald for losing a recent court case against local villain and long standing adversary Danny Macer. He's even angrier when Macer turns up to celebrate, but anger turns to suspicion when Fitzgerald's found dead on a golf course the following morning.

As the team examine Fitzgerald's soured personal life, including his affair with physiotherapist Rachel Waller, Dalziel goes after Macer. Pascoe tries to keep the investigation on course, but Dalziel's obsession soon leads him into confrontation with both Pascoe and his boss. ACC Stella Applegarth orders him back off duty on grounds of ill-health. Pascoe takes over, but soon finds evidence - a key leading to a bank vault and a suitcase full of money - which suggests that Dalziel's instincts about Fitzgerald may have been right.

As Pascoe explores the implications, a second murder, that of Rachel Waller

Wetherton CID struggles to track down a serial killer with a penchant for words, as Messrs Dalziel and Pascoe take on their most puzzling and challenging case to date. The sublimely confident killer leaves a dialogue for the police to find after each murder. These chilling documents, carefully written and lovingly illustrated, describe each killing in detail and, at the same time, are strewn with tantalising hints and clues.