The Wings of Night presents a rather prickly character in Neil Jamieson, forester and veteran, who spent a major part of the war in a German prison camp, and who came back to a remote town in his native Nova Scotia to attempt to wipe his mind free of the claims of an unhappy childhood.

But he finds it not so easy to do; his grandmother, who brought him up, is living in dire poverty, on a tiny pension, all the trappings of ancient grandeur gone, but still sturdily independent and proud.

Neil starts an investigation of the forest areas that had been the Jamieson woods and unearths some seamy doings. He finds, too, that an adolescent love still has its hold - though the girl, Louise, is married to the scion of the Big Shot in town, Senator Quarrender.

The story, with its odd ramifications, builds up to Stephen Quarrender's death in hunting, to Neil's trial as the accused.