Three old men died on a stormy November night: one by deliberate violence, one in a road accident and one by an unknown cause.

Inspector Pascoe was called in to investigate the first death, but when the dying words of the accident victim suggested that a drunken Superintendent Dalziel had been behind the wheel, the integrity of the entire Mid-Yorkshire constabulary was called into question.

Helped by the bright but wayward Detective-Constable Seymour, hindered by "Maggie's Moron", the half-witted Constable Hector, Peter Pascoe entered the twilight and vulnerable world of the senior citizen - to discover that the beckoning darkness at the end of the tunnel held few comforts...