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Whilst surgeons are fighting to save the life of a young woman, an archaeology student found in bed with gunshot wounds to the head, Wycliffe is approached by wealthy novelist David Cleeve. He has been the regular recipient of a single playing card, the Jack of Diamonds, and on the last occasion the card was torn in half, causing Cleeve to believe that someone is out to murder him. When a man walking on a beach is indeed killed Cleeve reckons that he was the intended victim and Wycliffe uncovers a whole series of crimes starting some years earlier.
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Amateur flautist Tony Miller is found shot with his own gun on land belonging to the wealthy Bottrell family, and the first verdict is that he committed suicide. However the disappearance of one of the Bottrells' maids and the discovery of a further body leads Wycliffe to uncover some rather unpalatable family secrets.
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Every Halloween a life-size effigy of a man is strapped to a blazing wheel and sent into the sea - a ritual ridding the community of evil via the use of a 'scapegoat, in lieu of a human sacrifice. When the body of local undertaker Jonathan Riddle is found washed up on the rocks, at first sight it seems that he was used as the scapegoat but Wycliffe soon finds other likely motives for his demise.
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When elderly Lily Armitage goes to visit an invalid friend at her tumble-down farmstead she is understandably shocked to find the old lady's corpse locked in a freezer. At the same time, pregnant teenager Hilda Clemo runs away from home after a row with her family and is declared missing. Wycliffe attempts to find a connection between the two incidents.
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The police investigate the murder of the local church cleaner, Jessica, who is found dead at the foot of the alter by Rev. Michael Jordan. Jessica was well known in the village and was a strong woman who had a difficult life. She was also despised by many in the community, accused of having loose morals. Jessica and her sister Katherine Geach had a tense relationship as well. Several women in the community, led by Rev. Jordan's sister Celia, seemed to have a particular dislike for her. Jessica owned a farm and had tenants including Lawrence and Stephanie Vinter and their son Giles. When DI Lane finds threatening notes in Jessica's room, it is clear to just what extent some people wanted to get rid of her.
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When Harry Tremaine is blown up on his boat, suspicion falls on his son and principal heir Freddie. However, there are others in the frame such as Harry's unfaithful wife who was conducting an affair with his partner and the property developer anxious to build a marina on quayside land Harry was reluctant to sell. And who is the mysterious person to whom Harry gave £500 every month? Wycliffe has a lot of loose ends to tie together.
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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?
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When Alex Keir reports the disappearance of his wife Alison to the police, Wycliffe is not entirely convinced that he is genuine. However, a ransom note goes some way towards changing his mind and then Mrs. Keir is found dead, smelling of drink, in a car crash. Was it murder?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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?
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Agnes Currow scares off robbers trying to steal a skull from an archaeological dig on her land but the skeleton is under thirty years old, leading Wycliffe to the aristocratic Rawle family desperate to maintain their lineage in the face of a youthful indiscretion by child-like daughter Tilly.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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After he is accused of breaching the hated E.C. fishing quota, Joe Mawnam's trawler sinks and his mate and best friend Don dies. Wycliffe and his colleagues establish that the boat was scuttled for the insurance money but their professional instincts are at odds with sympathy for fishermen whose livings are being destroyed by foreign bureaucracy and ultimately must act to prevent another tragedy.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Karen Drew marries John Leigh three weeks after meeting but John is murdered and robbed in their honeymoon hotel while Karen is out walking. All the wedding guests were strangers who answered a newspaper ad and all have alibis, putting Karen squarely in the frame. Wycliffe also tries to help an old man who killed his terminally-ill wife at her request.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Unpopular Ray Gurney, landlord of the noisy Ship Inn, is murdered. Informant Gary Tregenna points the police towards Sam Venning, who has married Gurney's ex-wife Lisa and resents her giving him money to bail out his pub. Venning admits to visiting Gurney but he did not murder him. Gary, however, is considerably less innocent than he makes out, as Lucy Lane discovers.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Kim, a prostitute, informs Doug Kersey that a punter told her that, three nights earlier, he murdered another lady of the night. Kersey is initially sceptical but evidence points to James Lassiter, a neighbour of Wycliffe, formerly acquitted of a sex crime but logged as a kerb crawler. However, a regular user of prostitutes hangs himself by a lake, and, when it is dredged, Mrs. Lassiter's corpse is found. Her husband was aware of her obsession with playing at being a prostitute and played along to please her. Lucy Lane gets back with journalist ex-lover Angus.
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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.
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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.
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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. . .
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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.
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