A female Vicar named Sarah Hussain is discovered strangled in her Kingsmarkham vicarage. Maxine, the gossipy cleaning woman who discovers her body, happens to also be in the employment of retired Chief Inspector Wexford and his wife. When called on by his old deputy, Wexford leaps at the chance to tag along with the investigators. A single mother, Hussain was of mixed race and working to modernize the church. Could racism or sexism have played a factor in her murder? After Wexford searches her house, he soon realizes he has made a grave error in removing a piece of valuable evidence from the scene without telling anybody. Yet what he finds begins to illuminate the vicar's murky past.