From Yorkshire to Thornton Lacey is only a morning's drive, but for Peter Pascoe it's a journey into the past, a chance to kick back with his closest friends from college. On arrival, though, he finds not a warm welcome but a grisly triple-murder, with one of his oldest mates as the chief suspect. Still something of a newbie in the police force, Pascoe is a bit out of his depth and he is most certainly out of his jurisdiction, and the local cops aren?t much interested in Pascoe's hunches about his friends? complex relationships. It's all a misery for Pascoe until Dalziel and Ellie turn up to add their two pence.