Timothy Herring’s job evaluating and restoring historic buildings is far from dangerous. But when he accepts an assignment to investigate a Norman church in the village of Parsons Purity, he finds himself an unlikely target of intimidation. Reports on the church are stolen from his briefcase, a ladder he’s perched upon is pushed away from a wall, and he wakes to find a knife-wielding stranger in his bedroom. What’s more, the parish vicar and townspeople are exceedingly resistant to his efforts to restore the church roof. Timothy intends to abandon the project and the village...until a homemade bomb demolishes his car and a local man is slain in the most unusual of circumstances. With a murder trial looming, both justice and fear compel Timothy to turn from historian...to amateur detective.