The fifth in the FFSG series.

In his cases to date Frank has ended each one by performing some deed guaranteed to bring danger to his own life and limbs (unlike during them, when it's been his colleagues most in danger from his actions). He ends Jokers with a declaration that he intends to carry out the most dangerous thing he has done to date ... get married.

His colleagues are initially appreciative; there has been much betting over whether he would propose, and to whom. Some people stand to make a decent return on their bets, others to grin and bear a loss.

Prophecies opens with the entire station in disagreement with his choice, for it appears he has managed to bypass all their interference and play a wild card. Above all he has not chosen between the favourites, his awesome boss Frieda, his sexy but and highly volatile young constable, and his soi-disant girlfriend who only goes out with him to make his life miserable, "Dr Death", aka the attractive young pathologist Susan Pleadle. They don't know who his choice is, but he must be stopped at all costs.

Then two things transpire: his colleagues decide that he has done the right thing after all (in their eyes) so the wedding must go ahead (again at all costs). Except the new young woman police constable Sam Nightingale (lesbian, pagan, witch, red hair, green eyes and a figure to make a young man forget himself) has made a prediction (according to desk sergeant Eric Johns) that the wedding will not happen. It is thus up to Wellbury's finest to defeat The Prophecy.

The first obvious action is to ensure that he doesn't get given any work which might involve potential danger. Never mind dangerous criminal gangs, paper-cuts have led to septicaemia. So, stock-taking is out. Investigating reports of ghosts in the local cemetery, however, sounds as safe as house prices. And when alternative claims are made that the ghosts are, in fact, aliens, well, he can investigate aliens in the cemetery while he's about it. The inhabitants of the cemetery are hardly likely to cause him to lose any sleep.

What is causing him to lose sleep is the amount of preparation and organisation involved in even a small wedding; church or other? What colour the bridal dress? The bridesmaids'? Seating! Etiquette! Speeches!
His comparison of the relative organisational requirements between the wedding and the Invasion of Normandy combined with the assault on Arnhem come out in favour of the latter requiring less planning.
! ! !

Frank, being Frank, believes that organising a wedding is as simple and pragmatic as taking a watch to pieces and putting it back together again. The twitches that develop show that he is beginning to regret his chosen path. If he couldn't stand celibacy, what about living in sin instead? It would be cheaper, simpler, and more in the line of dear old Epicurus' thinking.

It doesn't help the bride-to-be when Frank's mother recalls that he was indeed very good at taking watches apart. He just never managed the "putting them back together" phase too well.

The Mrs Summers-to-be develops her own set of fears and predictions and prophecies. Normally a level- headed woman, she abandons herself to the terrors of the unbeatable inevitable, to the extent that, with seven days to go and while attending another police wedding, she verbalises a list of seven ways Frank will avoid marriage, based on "Fifty Ways to leave your lover", which the Chief Inspector unhelpfully writes down:

He could get himself attacked and badly injured.

He'll get hit by a bus

He'll come down with food poisoning.

He could be attacked by a rabid dog and have to be quarantined for a month.

Knowing Frank, he could be abducted by aliens.

Maybe he'll get religion. Decide to become a priest or monk.

Most likely he'll just disappear, leaving a note saying that he'll be gone some time.

To her disbelief, every single one comes true.