When Deacon Theodora Braithwaite agrees to visit an old friend, Susan Tye, wife of the Provost of the cathedral near Gainshurst, she finds the Cathedral Close in turmoil, following the death of a workman. The accident adds greatly to the burdens borne by Reggie Tye, already battling to fund the restoration of possibly the ugliest cathedral in Britain (or one of the most unusual, depending on your point of view), and, according to his wife, a victim of a mysterious blackmailer.
Theodora is unimpressed by the spartan hospitality on offer and even less impressed with the Tyes' wild theories. But as suspicions mount that the tragic accident may not have been an accident at all, but rather a convenient murder, Theordora is reluctantly drawn into a most unseemly ecclesiastical wrangle . . .
