Claude Greengrass is playing host to a group of Norwegian history students. At the same time several burglaries are investigated, and Les Gulliver is a suspect as is Andy Ryan, a new guest at the Aidensfield Arms who takes Gina's breath away. The chief constable had asked Oscar Blaketon to form and chair a crime prevention committee in Aidensfield, and Oscar sees the robbery at the brewery as an excellent opportunity for his new committee to prove its worth. Not all committee members agree with him on how to do it.. Claude's Norwegians are especially interested in historic Viking sites. Only there are not many of those around, and Claude has to find a way...

An old man is attacked in what appears to be an open-and-shut case of burglary.

Film producer Denzil Arcourt and his team take over Ashfordly Hall for a couple of days to shoot scenes for a new movie. The whole village is impressed by the movie people, who stay at the Aidensfield Arms. But unlike most movie people Arcourt does not like it and get very enraged, when Gina takes a picture of him with the new camera she has just been given by Andy. David has bought a couple of hens from Nathaniel Clegghorn so that he can sell the eggs, but he wants his money back, when Greengrass discover both the hens are cocks. That is easier said than done when Clegghorn threatens them with his shot gun. Greengrass and David are not the only ones who find themselves at the wrong end of Clegghorn's shot gun. Lord Ashfordly gets in the same position when Clegghorn accuses his dog of disturbing Clegghorn's sheep.

Christmas time is near. Somebody has been decimating Lord Ashfordly's population of deer, and for once Greengrass is not a suspect. As a matter of fact he agrees to help the police by posing as a potential buyer to smoke the poachers out. He is also occupied by his latest idea, a driving school - using Bernie Scripps's hearse. Jackie is handling a divorce case for Julia Kendall and she wants the police to enforce a restraining order against her husband Frank. Her daughter Katie misses her father and still visits him almost every day hoping her parents will get back together again. Maggie is in charge of the annual Christmas concert and she wants Katie Kendall to sing at the concert. A good idea because the young girl has the voice of an angel.

Gina has brought young Sian along to help her behind the bar at a dance, but Sian is more interested in dancing with a young man called Ben Ealham and having fun. Gina scolds her and sends her home, but Sian runs out of petrol on her way home. The next morning Sian is found badly bruised and raped in her car. Before she is rushed to hospital Sian names Ealham as her assailant. Sergeant Nokes, who has temporarily switched places with Craddock, is certain she has an open and shut case, but Ealham's solicitor Jackie Bradley disagrees and gets him off on technicalities. This brings about a frigid distance between her and Mike.

The artist Joe Vaughan has rented a cottage from Lord Ashfordly to do some painting. He has had a bit of a clash with members of the local rugby club and they do what they can to annoy him. A Liverpool gangster, Boyd, is also interested in him and he has sent two goons to do the dirty job. His benefactor Rod Dundas organizes an exhibition at the cottage, but the night after the opening the cottage burns and all Vaughan's paintings are destroyed. Well not all of them, since one of them is missing. Greengrass gets a grant from the council for his new "romantic boarding house" and can soon greet his first guests. His old friend Betty persuades him to buy a share of the race horse Alnwick Flyer, which must be sold for tax reasons. There is something about Gina's boyfriend Andy that Oscar Blaketon does not like and he starts to follow Andy around like a shadow.

Dr. Ian Peters is the new doctor in Aidensfield. His presence will soon be needed when a hit-and-run driver crashes into the car of Jackie's friend Sue. Both she and Jackie get only minor injuries. Or so it seems because it turns out that Sue has a severe, internal head injury when she collapses into a coma. David is a witness to the accident, and when he and Greengrass are picking up some old bicycles, which the old scoundrel has "borrowed" from Lord Ashfordly to hire out to the participants of a fun bike race, they find the hit-and-run car burning. Lord Ashfordly identifies the car as his old Bentley, and his nephew Charles testifies that he saw the chauffeur's son Eric sitting in the car shortly before the accident. Andy is trying to get back into Gina's good books, and he has some serious doubts about the new doctor's qualifications. But he might just be jealous because Gina likes Dr. Peters.

Lord Ashfordly's game keeper Frank McCready is deep in debt with bookmakers and loan sharks breaks into Ashfordly Hall and steals the money for the staff wages. When his wife Mary finds out he promises her to pay every penny back, but she is afraid she will be regarded as an accomplice if she does not tell the police, what she knows. She sees only one solution to her problems with PC Bradley as an unlucky witness. Greengrass and David come across a stranded lorry loaded with bags of coal and the old scoundrel consider it their duty to salvage the coal according to maritime law - a very free interpretation on his part based on the fact that one of the wheels of the lorry is standing in small puddle of water. Not surprisingly nobody else sees it that way.

Jackie's parents are in England to meet their new son-in-law. They come from South Africa, are very conservative and not too happy about their daughter being married to a village bobby. And they are not Mike's cup of tea either. A car is found in the middle of a stream. There is no sign of the driver or any passengers, but the hub cabs are missing. It turns out that the car belongs to Archie and Marian Drew and was stolen the previous day on the ferry from Amsterdam. Greengrass and David pick up Micky Shannon, who is travelling around the country collecting old folk tunes. Shannon also has a business proposition for Greengrass. He has seeds for thousands of rare orchids and wants Greengrass to grow them for him.