A summer holiday week with friends and family in an old stone cottage in pretty Pencarden village, in the lovely woodland grounds of the Police College where Bruno is teaching a course in emotional reception as an aspect of situational awareness. Bruno gets lost in the pathways that wind among the Scots pine, horse chestnut, larch, beech, oak, sycamore, yew and elms and is drawn to the estuary with its mudflats, and the haunting cries of curlews. A faded photograph of a Late Victorian lady in white muslin, with a Chinese parasol, draws his attention. As his practical course stimulates the students in unexpected ways, the past seeps into the present and a persistent presence is felt – and seen. The I-Ching shows the way and Imogen, reluctantly, forces Bruno to face a truth he has long avoided. Last in the series, The Marrying Maiden draws The Bruno Benedetti Mysteries to a close.