It's 1960 and Dr Lucien Blake returns home to find Ballarat hosting a very public stopover in a cross-country, endurance motor race - and a very suspicious death. Chief Superintendent Lawson is seriously injured and retires. Blake recognises his growing feelings for Jean and he takes his mother's engagement ring from his study. A new reporter taken on at the local paper, The Courier, is Lawson's niece Rose Anderson.