A true-life Heartbeat for the twenty-first century. Yorkshireman Mike Pannett has just taken up a new posting as a local bobby in rural North Yorkshire. It's quite a change from the Met, where he dealt with riots on the capital's streets and drug gangs in Battersea, and found out what it was like to stare down the wrong end of a sawn-off shotgun. Now, instead of hunting down knife-wielding muggers, he's chasing runaway bullocks, holding up the Last Night of the Proms traffic to escort a lost mole across the road and combing the countryside for the villains who stole the Colonel's balls. Mike's first year on his new patch is told in seventeen chapters which interweave his escapades on the beat month by month together with his growing knowledge of a landscape that changes with the seasons and some snapshots from his off-duty life. Here is a wonderfully entertaining celebration of North Yorkshire, its breathtaking scenery and wide variety of characters and communities.

Mike Pannett, once of the Metropolitan Police, is back in Yorkshire, policing one of the largest rural beats in England. Mike is called to investigate a series of burglaries, which are sending shock waves through the area. Remote farmhouses appear to be the targets, which stretches Mike's small team to the limits. Then, as winter sets in, two dogs are found running loose - Mike fears the owner has gone missing in the dreadful weather and is forced to call on a full-scale search. Throw in a night-time operation in an empty museum, and the harrowing business of taking three children into care against their mother's wishes, and it's quite a case-load for the author of Now Then, Lad, You're Coming With Me, Lad, Not On My Patch, Lad and Just the Job, Lad.

Policing rural Yorkshire is a far cry from Mike's old job hunting down drug gangs and knife crime in Central London. Settled back in his native Yorkshire, the former Metropolitan Policeman finds that life as a rural beat bobby is no picnic. After a crazed swordsman threatens to take his head off, he finds himself confronting a knife-wielding couple bent on carving each other up. When a stag night turns ugly he ends up with the groom, the best man and the bride-to-be all banged up in the cells - and the wedding just hours away. With record-breaking floods and politicians to escort, will Mike find time woo the woman of his dreams?

After ten years with the Metropolitan Police, Mike has returned to his North Yorkshire roots. Working a rural beat in God's Own Country he finds that life and crime in the countryside continue to throw up fresh challenges. When a drug dealer targets the towns and villages of Ryedale, Mike launches an investigation that will uncover nationwide connections. News of a proposed ban on hunting with dogs raises hackles amongst his friends and contacts, threatening to put him in the firing line. And, as he starts working towards his sergeant's exams, there's trouble on the home front. The roof at Keeper's Cottage springs a leak during a thunderstorm - and they have to share their love-nest with the builder. But none of this matches the drama of the anti-hunt demo which threatens to stop a train bringing a local MP to town. With horseman racing alongside the steam engine, and a protester lying on the tracks, Mike has to call on all his resources to handle an inflammatory situation with the media looking on.

Mike Pannett used to work the beat in Central London - tackling drugs and knife crime - so when he moved back to Yorkshire he was hoping for a quieter life. But it seems the moors and villages of his native county aren't as sleepy as he once thought...A casual remark about a barn with blacked-out windows leads him to an isolated farmhouse and a young girl is attacked at a local theme park. Meanwhile, Mike is still trying to identify and bring to justice the 'Sunset Gang' who are systematically targeting isolated warehouses and shops on his patch. On the home front, Ann has moved into Keeper's Cottage and taken a Sergeant's post in York - and people are asking Mike what it's like to be a kept man.