故事发生在1921年的英格兰，在一战中所经历的失败令压抑而又沉痛的气氛笼罩了在全国上下。弗洛伦斯（丽贝卡·豪尔 Rebecca Hall 饰）是一位打假义士，正义感极强的她将戳穿谎言揭露真相视为己任，她不相信世间有鬼魂存在，存在的只有险恶的人心。
在一所男子寄宿学校中，盛传着闹鬼的传闻，在人们口中，一个非正常死亡的男孩的鬼魂终日徘徊在校园中不肯离去。为了打消学生和家长的恐惧，学校委托弗洛伦斯前来调查。弗洛伦斯很快便展开了工作，在她的精明强干之下，事件的真相逐渐浮出了水面。而正当她以为问题已经得到了解决准备离开时，却发生了一件足以颠覆她此生全部信仰的事件。
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.
