George Gently

Embittered by the hit-and-run murder of his beloved wife, Gently plans to collect his pension and fade into a lonely retirement.

Gently and Bacchus try to determine the identity of a body found in a wooded area, shot once through the head and then burned beyond recognition.

Shot down over England and billeted with a kindly farm family during the war, pilot Gunter Schmeikel returns to Northumberland to visit his former captors, now his friends.