Heaton and Spike are the unlikeliest pair: two loners who have found each other. When Spike commits a terrible crime, Heaton decides to stand by him - an act of astonishing, almost foolhardy loyalty. There begins a chase across a vast Northern landscape of moors, rivers and dark woods, the increasingly exhausted fugitives being hunted not by the police but by a posse of farmers intent on revenge. No ordinary chase film, This Is Not a Love Song is a love story trapped inside the body of a thriller.

A student production of The Merchant of Venice takes real-life deadly turn when a cast member is killed using a prop knife. Apart from the jealous ensemble cast who can't even muster fake tears over the loss of their colleague, there is an audience of suspects to consider — a career con man, an egotistical television personality and a young man who just might have killed to get a part in the play. Lewis and Hathaway methodically try to make sense of the murderous plot, but before they do, another death occurs with a Shakespearean sensibility. As the final act is about to unfold, the case takes an intensely personal turn for Lewis, bringing back traumatic memories and invoking a lesson in mercy.

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.