Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. Now he has sound a measure of peace among urban escapees and yoga practitioners, artists and crafters and New Agers.

Max Tudor, Anglican priest, former MI5 agent and village heart throb, investigates two deaths at Chedrow Castle. But his growing attraction to Awena Owen complicates his case, as does the recent arrival at Chedrow Castle of a raucous group of long-lost, greedy relatives, any one of whom has a motive for murder.