The novel was adapted as the final episode in the Inspector Morse television series.

The title derives from a line in the poem "XVI – (How clear, how lovely bright)", from More Poems, by A. E. Housman, a favourite poet of Dexter and Morse: Morse tries to solve the unsolved murder of Yvonne Harrison, as his health deteriorates.

Harrison, a nurse, has inspired romantic attachment in Morse during an earlier (and separate) illness, and he has written to her about it.

She is a sharer of her favours; recipients, including her daughter's lover, are serially suspect.

Morse dies of acute myocardial infarction; his last words are "Thank Lewis for me."