In the week before private detective Marty Hopkirk's wedding to waitress Jeannie Hurst, he and his partner, Jeff Randall, get a job from famous artist Gordon Stylus to watch over his wife, as he fears for her safety. In the course of the assignment, Marty is killed, and the grieving Jeff and Jeannie must investigate how he died, which then endangers their lives. Fortunately Jeff begins to get help from Marty's ghost, which only he can see. Marty fails to get back to his grave in time and is cursed to walk the earth for the duration of Jeff Randall's life, visible only to him...

When Jeannie senses that her nephew, Daniel, is unhappy at his boarding school, she quizzes him about it, and he lets on that he thinks a teacher was murdered. Jeff and Jeannie get jobs there as teacher and nurse, to investigate, and find that the headteacher is exerting a sinister influence on the boys.

Douglas Milton is writing a book revealing matters relating to security and terrorism, that many authorities and organisations would rather be kept secret, which makes him a prime assassin's target. Jeff and Jeannie get an assignment to protect him from harm until he makes the revelations public at a prestigious international conference.

Harry Wallis was once the partner in the police force of Marty's father, Larry Hopkirk, until Maurice Crabbe killed Larry and disabled Wallis, in revenge for their killing of his brother, the hardened criminal Sidney Crabbe, though Maurice is also left severely disabled by the incident. Marty's tuition from Wyvern concludes, and he is then able to enter Limbo, but there he realises that its attractions are only superficial. Now that Wallis is approaching the end of his life, to salve his remorse he hires Jeff and Jeannie to locate Maurice Crabbe so that he can give him some of his savings to pay for his care.

The enigmatically beautiful Lauren Dee hires Jeff to investigate the disappearance of her husband somewhere in rural England, but it proves to be just a ploy to entice Jeff and Marty into the grip of a village that Time has bypassed since the Middle Ages. Wyvern realises that the only way to save Marty is to enlist the help of Jeannie.