As he drove his chief down to Kidlington, Lewis returned the conversation to where it had begun. 'You haven't told me what you think about this fellow Owens - the dead woman's next-door neighbour.' ' Death is always the next-door neighbour', said Morse sombrely.

The murder of young woman...
A cryptic 'seventeenth-century' love poem...
A photograph of a mystery grey-haired man...

More than enough to set Chief Inspector E. Morse on the trail of a killer.

And it's a trail that leads him to Londsdale College, where the contest between Julian Storrs and Dr Denis Cornford for the coveted position of Master is hotting up.

But then Morse faces a greater, far more personal crisis...