A young girl suffering from amnesia after surviving a house fire that takes her childhood friend's life, begins a tormented road to recovery.

Private Peaceful details the gritty rural lives and loves of Tommo and Charlie - two young brothers - and their poor Devonshire family from 1909 until 1916, when the outbreak of war destroys their country idyll. Both join up (one under age) leaving behind the beautiful Molly who is the love of both their lives. The young men survive gas attacks, shelling, German troops and the appalling deaths of their close friends. But one thing they cannot escape is summary military justice.

In 1860 Scotland Yard's 'Prince of Sleuths' Jack Whicher is sent to rural Wiltshire to investigate the murder of three-year-old Saville Kent,snatched from his bed at night and killed.Saville's nurse Elizabeth Gough is a prime suspect but released for want of evidence though local Superintendant Foley is convinced it is an inside job. Foley gives his help grudgingly,disdainful of 'modern' methods,speculating that Saville woke to see Elizabeth with a lover,possibly Saville's father,an unpopular man. Part of a woman's torn garment is found,stained in blood,and Constance,Kent's sixteen-year-old daughter from his first marriage, claims she lost a night-gown. Dr. Stapleton,the family physician,tells Whicher that Constance,like her mother,is dangerously unstable and jealous of Saville. Both she and younger brother William hate their stepmother Mary,their former nanny,with whom Kent cuckolded their mother...