Still leading his reluctant double life, DI Henry Crabbe is stuck on a boring surveillance job. While he’s watching a pizzeria, Margaret and Nicola struggle at Pie in the Sky--understaffed and in the crosshairs of an angry bank manager. Despite a crackdown on early retirement that has Crabbe tied to the force for three more years, he offers the bank manager a meal to prove Pie’s viability.

Tragedy strikes when there is an accident during a police pheasant shoot on a country estate, and ACC Fisher himself is in the frame. Was it really an accident, or a crime of passion? There as the event’s caterer, it falls to Crabbe to check out the facts--and to save his boss’s career.

Bubbly Irishwoman Kit Kelly descends on Middleton with her boisterous family of brothers and her brand-new husband, sexy ex-pat American writer Byron de Goris. They plan to take over Pie in the Sky for a traditional wedding feast--until Margaret recognizes Byron from her 60s Carnaby Street days, only she knew him as James.

When a wine-loving regular at pie in the Sky, Charles Rider, is threatened by DCI Doggett, Crabbe is forced to intervene. When he finds himself embroiled in an ancient squabble involving the Razor Reg Costigan and his nemesis Striker of the Yard, he’s forced to wonder: just who is Charles Rider?

When a spate of garden thefts hits Middleton, ACC Fisher asks Crabbe to investigate, and forces him to team up with the National Horticultural Division: the clumsy duo DC’s Linney and Spink. Meanwhile, Margaret has hired local landscapers Gardens of Eden to create an al fresco dining area. How do they figure into the thefts?

Crabbe is dragged onto Operation Grabbitback to help recover stolen cars, and he must cope with bossy Detective Superintendent Chalmers breathing down his neck. When Chalmers closes the case after catching her man, Crabbe and Fisher keep digging into a larger smuggling ring. Meanwhile, a picky food inspector in causing havoc at Pie in the Sky.