For DI Crabbe, getting shot in the line of duty is the last straw. But when he tries to retire and open up his dream restaurant, the police are reluctant to let him go. ACC Fisher assures him life as a part-time cop and restaurateur will be the best of both worlds. His non-foodie wife, Margaret, thinks it's more likely a recipe for disaster.

As Crabbe tries to get his new restaurant underway, Fisher enlists him to find a missing policeman. The AWOL cop claims to have evidence of corruption at the highest levels of the force. Can Crabbe solve the case in time for the opening night of Pie in the Sky?

The restaurant is up and running, with a popular menu and regular customers-one of whom happens to be under investigation. Crabbe acquiesces to a police team taking over the premises. But when he realizes they wish to entrap his customer, he must find a way to prove the man's innocence.

While preparing a seafood menu for visiting Japanese dignitaries, Crabbe spots a criminal in town reported dead 15 years ago. Sensing something fishy, Crabbe investigates. When offered full retirement from the force if he drops the case, he's left with the hardest choice of all.

When a pilot in a small import business is shot dead, it looks like a burglary gone wrong. Fisher gives the case to Crabbe, who wonders, not for the first time, just what his boss is up to. Is there a drug-ring angle? Or was it a pet-smuggling operation? Crabbe tries to separate the coincidences from the red herrings.

Fisher signs Crabbe up for what seems like a wild goose chase-a project to improve police relations with the public. Meanwhile, Crabbe also investigates the supposedly accidental death of an Indian businessman that may have been racially motivated.

With Fisher on vacation, Crabbe has a whole week off to work on his menus. But cooking takes second place when his ex-con sous-chef gets arrested. Soon he's also looking into the disappearance of the girlfriend of a family friend.

Crabbe investigates a smash and grab at a wine merchant's warehouse and discovers that his own restaurant is being targeted in a more indirect way. Things get personal after Margaret encounters the villains face to face.

When a farmer discovers the remains of a young French woman murdered 18 years earlier, Crabbe reopens one of his and Fisher's old cases. Doubt starts to fall on the conviction of a farm laborer serving a life sentence for the killing.

Crabbe is called on to arrest conservation activists suspected of interfering with the construction of a new highway. Things take a strange twist when thugs start intimidating the activists. After Fisher learns that Crabbe's wife supports the conservationists, he uses the case as a test of his inspector's loyalty.