One Halloween, Ligiea Willard, stem-cell researcher and ex-roommate of Laura Hobson, is killed on her way to a reunion with Laura and another old friend named Ellen Jacoby. Her work attracted protests, and she was about to go public on shady practices at her institute. Psychic Ursula Van Tressell senses the killing and exorcises a house where the three women once lived at its owners' request. The next day, a resident is found slain, and a message on the fridge urges to find Mary Gwilliam, who was also murdered after trying to phone Laura. Mary was a nurse at a mental hospital where another of Laura's roommates--and boyfriend--died. After an unsuccessful attempt to kill Ellen, Lewis, her boyfriend, realizes that Laura has not been honest with him.

该剧是英剧《摩斯探长》的续篇，于2006-2015年在ITV播出，共九季33集，每集约90分钟，其中从2013年的第七季开始每集在ITV1首播时被拆分为上下两部分连续两周播出，然而在重播时以及在美国PBS电视台播出时依旧作为整集播出。该剧将背景设置在学术气息浓郁的牛津，剧中很多含有隐喻的诙谐对白在外国文学爱好者看来会别有趣味，同时延续摩斯系列侧重通过案件展示各色人生和命运悲剧的特色，凶手被揭露后通常会有一幕对手戏将矛盾推至高潮，尘埃落定后缓和而带有希望的片尾曲又形成鲜明映衬，让人感叹命运无常及人的渺小，同时又看到光明的希望。该剧多位编剧也曾参与ITV版大侦探波洛和马普尔小姐系列剧的改编。

当他还是个小孩子的时候，凯尔·威尔士（查尼·克雷饰）就总是向大家诉说：他晚上从睡梦中突然醒来，看见了正要准备杀死他的牙仙！从那以后，小镇上的人们就认为这孩子疯了，只有青梅竹马的凯特琳(爱玛·克菲尔德饰)和她的弟弟麦克相信他。 许多年过去了，魔鬼再次回来，凯尔不得不回到小镇，面对过去那些一直悬而未决的问题，以及小时候的女友，还有那困扰这个小镇150年的黑暗……

平安夜，城市渐渐进入黑暗，Raven wood仅存的居民发现他们困在了建筑物内。但他们并不是这里唯一的生物……

杰西（Jess）和安德里亚（Andrea）正在苏格兰高地徒步旅行。然而，她们的冒险假期变得险恶起来。在一家酒吧偶然遇到两个男人后，安德里亚失踪了，这让杰西不得不去一个她不熟悉且当地人不太愿意帮忙的地方寻找她的朋友。在这片宁静的乡村背后，是否隐藏着什么邪恶的事情呢？

Professor Andrew Crompton, an amateur astronomer, is found dead in the university observatory after visiting a priest for confession. A note-book belonging to student Jez Haydock is found by the body and Jez's tutor, Gwen Raeburn, is quick to go through the dead man's belongings. The widow believed her husband was having an affair and obsequious porter Roger Temple names Ella Ransome, a G.P., as the other woman - and then she too is killed. Roger proves to be a manipulator though not a murderer but his father knows the identity of the killer. He's a retired porter, now in a home where he is regarded as senile and deluded but Lewis needs him to get to the truth.

Lewis returns to Oxford after several years absence and is reluctantly assigned by his new boss, DCS Innocent, to the murder of an Oxford mathematics student who was shot while participating in a sleep study. The key-code used to access the sleep lab was assigned to a fellow maths student, Daniel Griffin, but Daniel's math tutor has provided him with an alibi. Daniel is a maladjusted young man who will soon inherit his father's automotive empire. He is disruptive and has no respect for his uncle who now heads the company. The future of the company however rests on an impending deal with Japanese investors who insist that family unity is all important at this time. When two other murder occurs, Lewis must decipher a cryptic clue left in an old case file by his former boss, Chief Inspector Morse.

At first the murders of Reg Chapman, a handy man at the Bodleian Library and gambling addict, and Nell Buckley, a popular Art student, seem unrelated. However, it transpires that Chapmen stole parchment from the library upon which Nell and another student persuaded Philip, a brilliant, autistic young painter, to innocently forge letters by the poet Shelley for the international collectors' market. When both victims,for different reasons, threatened to expose the mastermind behind the scam, they were killed.

Lewis attends a book launch for a fantasy novel penned by prodigious young research fellow Dorian Crane, with whose adoptive mother, Ginny, Robbie's boss Jean is trying to match-make him. Later that night a Czech hotel worker Marina is found murdered. Professor Deering, the uncle of Dorian's fiancee and muse, Alice, confesses to having seen Marina on a foreign website and paid for her to come to Oxford, finding her work. However, as a supposed gay man, he is keen to hush up his sex life with her. Robbie believes that Marina was killed in mistake for Alice and then Dorian is also murdered, in order to preserve a secret well beyond Robbie's imagination.

Steven Mullan is found dead in his bathtub, the scalding water indicative of the white-hot rage that motivated the murder. Lewis recognizes Mullan as having been recently released from prison after having tried to kill celebrity atheist Tom Rattenbury while driving drunk. Mullan's sentence may be over, but have the scars healed for the Rattenburys, especially daughter Jessica who remains in a wheelchair from the incident?