Inspector George Gently

As Enoch Powell delivers his Rivers of Blood speech, disillusioned young people, black and white, come together to dance the night away to Northern Soul music at all-nighters. In Newcastle, their haven of equality is destroyed when a young black girl is murdered. Gently and Bacchus have their eyes opened to the shocking consequences of casual racism as racial tension spirals out of control, leaving a path of destroyed friendships, love affairs and families in its wake.

Chief inspector George Gently and Sergeant John Bacchus investigate the death of a beautiful young girl in a car belonging to local aristocrats.

It is 1968 and the shame of illegitimacy still burns the cheeks of single mothers and the families who force their unmarried daughters into 'mother and baby homes'. When the adopted child of a middle-class couple is kidnapped, suspicion falls upon the baby's birth mother. However, Gently and Bacchus's investigation into the mother and baby home itself reveals a much darker side to this hothouse of morality and raises serious questions about this seemingly perfect couple.

It has been four years since George Gently came north, but his old enemies haven't forgotten him. A vicious career criminal who Gently sent down years ago has been released, on the grounds that evidence was fabricated to frame him by Gently himself. And he is hell-bent on revenge. Suspended from duty, Gently finds himself powerless, unprotected and persecuted. If he is to survive, Gently must confront his deepest fears and fight to the death.