The racial unrest that is sweeping the United States reach British shores as Enoch Powell launches his tirade against immigration, but racial harmony can be found at the all-nighters that take place in 1968, where disillusioned young people, black and white, escape the boredom of factory life to dance the night away to imported soul music. In Newcastle, the haven of equality found at the Carlton Ballroom all-nighter is destroyed when a young black girl, Dolores Kenny, is cuddled, leading Gently to uncover a disturbing and racist undercurrent growing within the local community.

The indefatigable Chief Inspector George Gently and Detective Sergeant John Bacchus experience the inflated authority of their "social betters" first hand, when a beautiful young girl called Ellen Mallam is found dead in the passenger seat of a an upturned car registered 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 passing.