A hunt for John Bonetti, an escaped prisoner from HMP Bodmin, takes a dramatic twist after the discovery of a body. Wycliffe and his team race against time to recapture him.

Alex Keir is distraught when his wife Alison goes missing, but Wycliffe is sceptical of his grief, until a ransome note is found. The case of apparent kidnapping then takes a dramatic turn when Mrs Keir is found dead and smelling of alcohol at the wheel of a crashed car.

Wycliffe and his team investigate the death of a man found blasted by a shotgun at a Cornish holiday home. They discover evidence of ill-feeling between the dead man and his brother-in-law.

When a man's virtually unidentifiable body is washed ashore, Wycliffe is baffled when two separate women claim it is that of their missing husbands.

When a farmer goes missing, leaving his sheep and house unattended, the local police call in Wycliffe. Discoveries of arson and bloodstains lead the team into a farming community struggling to survive.

When an attempt is made to steal a headless skeleton from an archaelogical dig, Wycliffe discovers an estate steeped in archaic values. The identification of the skeleton unsettles the land-owning Rawle family, whose days of sovereignty in the community are fading.

Surfer Anne Carter is found in a deep coma when she is washed ashore. The assumption that she is a victim of afreak accident have to be revised when Wycliffe and his team investigate, and uncover a host of sinister facts and conspiracies. Their task is hindered by an obvious leak to the press, which puts DI Lane in a precarious position.