Former Saint-Marie ('Death in Paradise') sleuth Humphrey literally drops from the air -rescued by the firemen from a tree at his first base-jumping attempt- in to his new position as DI in charge of the police in sleepy Devonshire port Shipton Abbott, the birth town of his fiancee, Martha Lloyd, staying with her mother, whom they still didn't tell they expect getting pregnant by IVF treatment, while Martha looks for premises to open a cafe. After offering an easy way out to incorrigible local petty thief Josh Woods, and taking no active part in the red cars theft wave which alarms the commissioner, but turns out a cheeky grand romantic gesture, his first major crime case is the mystery, dismissed by his DS Esther Williams, of local tourist junk shops mini-chain owner Gwen Tyler, who is is hospital after a bad fall in the beach-house her husband, architect Peter, built, claiming she was pushed by a seventeenth-century witch of local legend who steals children, even though security cameras recorded no one entering or leaving. Humphrey works out possible suspects and motives, including business problems, adultery, blackmail and embezzlement, all locals invited to an annual small businesses wine tasting event, plus how to enter unseen.
—KGF Vissers