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1-38 of 38
- When the manager of the local building society and his wife are killed during an attempted kidnapping, Det. Superintendent Charles Wycliffe has to postpone a well-deserved holiday to Paris - much to the chagrin of his wife who decides to go without him. Since a shotgun was used in the killings, the police focus on licensed gun dealers, particularly Patrick Durno who has never had any convictions but is known to have had links to organized crime when he lived in London. When he's ordered to stop investigating Durno without an explanation, he disobeys and presses ahead jeopardizing a major investigation.
- John Bonetti, a violent criminal, escapes from a prison van during a routine transfer and re-commences his career as a drugs racketeer. Wycliffe is convinced that Jane Hardy, a seemingly respectable artist and volunteer prison visitor, has helped Bonetti because she has fallen in love with him. How can he prove it?
- Hectoring land-owner Lionel Penmore is shot dead and the chief suspects are his tenants Kevin and Laura Kessell. Penmore has tried bribery and violence to evict the pair and their baby, Flo, from the house where Kevin was born, in order to pay off huge debts following the collapse of a business deal. Wycliffe unmasks the real murderer but Penmore's vengeful family exact their own revenge on the Kessells.
- Unconscious surfer Anne Carter is washed up on a beach but her injuries and theft of her belongings disprove an accident. Devoted ex-boyfriend John Corliston, prone to black-outs due to medication, confesses that he may have sub-consciously harmed her but the heroin secreted in her surf board lead Wycliffe down another path involving her employer. When Anne awakes from her coma he is proved right but Lucy and her fiance split after Anne's story is leaked to the local paper.
- David and Angela Miller are shocked to find the corpse of Ezra, a local villain, nailed to the back door of their holiday home. Suspicion falls on another local boy Gary Penhale, whose family once lived in the Millers' house and has been sending them peculiar threatening notes. Overly helpful Colin Drake, who has the hots for Lucy Lane, also contributes damning evidence against Penhale. But the knowledge that Angela was the recent victim of a hit-and-run, and that she is the moneyed half of the couple, whilst her husband's business is floundering, causes Wycliffe to look elsewhere.
- Caravan site owner Bernard Tyzack is stabbed to death by usually non-violent thief Mick Sennam. Sennam says he was paid only to frighten Tyzack, who, unknown to his family, was a fraudster and pimp. Too frightened to name his employer Sennam kills himself in custody. Kersey is blamed though ultimately he gives Wycliffe the means to uncover the truth.
- Psychiatrist Stanley Malvern's wife Dawn is murdered whilst he is out with his dog. He has no financial gain from the death and helps the police investigation as a profiler. Lucy is sure the killer is a woman and she is right. Disturbed neighbour Annabel Naylor fits the bill but Wycliffe believes someone else set her up with a motive.
- The corpses of five illegal immigrants are found in a meat lorry by Customs at a Cornish ferry terminal. Driver Eddie Sowden goes missing and claims ignorance when the police locate and arrest him but Wycliffe is convinced he is lying and resolves to winkle out the truth.
- When a dead baby is found in a cardboard box on a church steps, Chris Matthews comes forward to say that he has seen a pagan sect, led by the unsympathetic Dr. Dayton, saying, "Bring forth the child" in a midnight ritual. Lucy investigates the sect but the real key to the mystery lies with Wycliffe's boozy friend Bill, whose wife has just left him and who is staying with the Wycliffes with his withdrawn teenage daughter.
- Climber Gareth Denton is killed in a cliff fall. A less than reliable witness drunkenly proclaims in the local pubs that he was murdered by his climbing partner, the obsessive Hugh Barrington, and a reconstruction tends to bear this out. Wycliffe suspects that Barrington is guilty but cannot find a motive. Lucy Lane, meanwhile, is pregnant and decides to bring up the baby on her own, having split again with boyfriend Angus.
- Reclusive old farmer George Totts goes missing after his house is torched, as does a young mystery man who rang the emergency services. He turns out to be Stephen Ling, estranged son of the local vet, whose surgery is also set alight after a theft. The boy's hand is burnt and Wycliffe surmises that he is hiding old George. Certainly both he - and neighbouring farmer Mrs. Prentice - have something to hide.
- Schoolgirl Ruth Penrose's body is found locked in a cupboard in a science lab by the caretaker, whose son Danny was seemingly her only friend. He goes missing after Ruth's twin Sheena has claimed he is the killer. It is apparent there was no love lost between the sisters, but would it extend to murder?
- Wycliffe is snapped with a tele-photo lens apparently giving money to Susan Brookes, who once helped him put her homicidal spouse away. He is accused of taking bribes when thirty thousand pounds is put into his account and he is suspended. Lucy, investigating the murder of two drug dealers, takes immediate maternity leave to help him and they discover that Selby, a notorious computer hacker and the ex-cell-mate of Susan's husband, is responsible. A showdown at Land's End also ties in with Lucy's investigation.
- Magistrate George Pender's body is found hanged in woods but Wycliffe does not believe it was suicide. Disgruntled fisherman Jimmy Yates, whose wife left him after Pender jailed him, is a suspect, but Lucy is intrigued by the attitudes of the Pender family, his son Neil and girlfriend Jane, whose mother Pat, like Pender, once lived in Plymouth. As Pender's hostility to the relationship between Jane and Neil is exposed, so is a shocking secret from his past.
- Famous yachtswoman Paula Tresize goes missing after her boat 'Lone Voyager' is sabotaged and wrecked. A woman's body is found at china clay pits owned by the Davis brothers who were in a land feud with her but Paula's much younger husband Ben identifies it as Paula's doctor, Joanna, who was about to emigrate. Joanna has been shot with Paula's gun and had led her to believe she was mentally ill. Wycliffe, whilst propping up an embittered Kersey, still waiting on Le Page's findings, must establish why.
- When fishermen discover the rotting corpse of a shotgun victim, Edwina Coryn tells Wycliffe she thinks it could be that of her husband, missing for a month. However Fiona Jay claims that her mentally unstable spouse, who has also gone missing, could be the dead person. Both women had financial problems because of their partners. Both women claim ignorance as to their husbands' fates. Which one is lying?
- Wycliffe and his team are called to Bodmin Moor where a resurgence in corpses suggests that the so-called 'Beast of Bodmin Moor', a black panther which escaped from a zoo, and has a reputation for mauling livestock to death, has been active in slaying locals. Wycliffe, however, takes the view that the so-called beast is a convenient cover for a murderer with genuine motives and his theory is put to the test when Doug Kersey ventures onto the moor on his own and fails to come back.
- Ellie Creed, whose father has just been imprisoned, is found strangled and the pathologist notes a similarity with unsolved serial killings a decade earlier. Chief suspect is Hugh Samford, in the frame before and now back in Cornwall after a long absence who has no alibi for Ellie's death or that of a second young woman. Kersey gets close to married Inspector Jill Gillespie, who liaised with the Creed family, making it more shocking when the true killer is exposed.
- Grinning teenage yob Tully literally gets away with murder when a judge must call a mistrial because Wycliffe's man Sergeant Noble failed to follow procedure. An inquiry results in Noble's demotion but when Lucy is ordered by Stevens to reopen an old murder case the experience leads Wycliffe to be extra careful to avoid technical errors, although the outcome leaves a nasty taste. At least Tully gets what's coming to him, allowing Wycliffe to atone for his failure to fully help the victim's family. Circumstances also endorse his decision to stay on as a policeman.
- Seven jars of baby food from a local supermarket are poisoned by a blackmailer demanding 50,000 pounds, though the motive turns out to be for personal revenge, not opportunism, with a specific victim in mind. Meanwhile Kersey is investigated by Superintendent Le Page, following Sennam's death in custody. He is hostile but Wycliffe puts in a strong defence for him.
- With Wycliffe recovering from Patrick Durno's attempt to kill him, Kersey takes charge when Farmer Miller wages war on anglers legally fishing on his land. When a salmon poacher is found dead Lucy Lane resents Kersey's leading the enquiry and makes an unsuccessful promotion bid, but Kersey reels in the killer himself. Wycliffe rejects early retirement and returns to work.
- Policeman Alan Trier is murdered and the abrasive Deputy Chief Constable Roth orders Wycliffe to avoid any scandal which would attract outside criticism in his investigation, given that Trier's wife had been having an affair with another officer - making them the obvious suspects. However, nothing is ever obvious to Wycliffe. . .
- Morna Petheric runs over and kills Dinah Curran, insisting that Dinah was a ghost come back to haunt her. The pathologist notes that Dinah bore stab wounds from years earlier and Morna believes she killed her when she was a little girl. Dinah was once married to Morna's uncle and her infidelity with Morna's father caused somebody, not necessarily Morna, to take drastic action, as Morna's mother is forced to confess. Superintendant Le Page returns. Her report fully exonerates Doug Kersey but criticizes D.C.C. Stevens for bad management.
- Jamie Yelland is found dead, shot through the head on land owned by Dan Hobden, and his house is ransacked. Jamie had been a diver, obsessed with a sunken treasure ship, carrying silver coins, allegedly never found, and had had dealings with local historian Donald Treloar, similarly obsessed and murdered with the same weapon that killed Jamie. Wycliffe believes the treasure was found and that both men were killed by an interested third party.
- Sophie Cattran, wife of Doug Kersey's friend Mike, goes missing after her evening class and her belongings are found at the Devil's Gateway, standing stones linked to the entrance to Hell in local superstition. After the class tutor has been found murdered Mike explains that his wife disappeared once before, without her medication, and almost killed somebody. Sophie reappears but the police are involved in a dash to the Devil's Gateway to prevent another slaying.