The murder of an Oxford librarian and a local tragedy test Endeavour and the team to their limits, as they uncover the truth behind the crime that has haunted them all.
Morse's investigation into a number of untimely death notices in the Oxford Mail takes him to a series of funerals, then behind the curtain at a funeral directors', before forcing him to confront his own mortality.
When a petty criminal absconds from an open prison, it sets off a chain reaction of troubling events, threatening to expose unspeakable horrors of the past.
The death of a schoolgirl brings Endeavour back to Oxford. When he refuses to accept that the main suspect is guilty, Endeavour has to uncover the truth and rescue a victim before it is too late.