Under the watchful eye of Constable Nick, the villagers of Aidensfield continue their rustic lives deep in the North York Moors of the 1960s. Greengrass almost ruins Sergeant Craddock's accident-free statistics when a henhouse falls off his lorry while Nick copes with a couple of determined lady shoplifters, a witness who can't remember what she saw, a roadman whose daily sandwiches are stolen and a man with a penchant for searching dustbins to find old socks. An ancient Aidensfield custom is revived in a tug-of-war which spans the river with Greengrass as anchor man, then Constable Nick performs some very special duties, such as traffic control at the funeral of a donkey or searching for a couple of stone badgers who went for a midnight walk. Only a small portion of a village constable's work is associated with crime, however: there were the villagers who helped a lady who had lost an heirloom; the tragic couple for whom everything went spectacularly wrong; and a surprise Royal visitor who poses a problem of secrecy for Constable Nick. It's all in this latest collection of tales from Aidensfield.

Genre: Mystery