The village of Glencairn is policed by a part-time manned police station consisting of a sergeant and two constables. Enter Detective Inspector Thomas Hazard, seconded from Divisional Headquarters to keep him out of trouble. A loner, down on his luck and far more intelligent than anyone gives him credit for, Hazard finds the idea of a peaceful stint in a rural backwater nothing more than a blissful notion. Glencairn, population 267 is not the dreamy idyllic country retreat Hazard thought it was going to be and before long Hazard finds himself - as usual - up to his neck in trouble. Trouble which includes a nosey big city journalist looking for a scoop, and a creepy ornithologist - all of whom keep Hazard and his unwilling officers busy whilst trying to find a murderer and a 64 year old woman who left her home in the middle of the night in nothing other than her dressing gown. It looks like the sleepy village of Glencairn is about to get a nasty wake-up call.