A young female archaeology student is found naked in bed with gunshot wounds, and lies in a critical condition in hospital. As surgeons try to save her life, Wycliffe digs into the life of a famous novelist, who claims his life is at risk. Then a man is shot dead while walking his dog on the beach, and Wycliffe is under pressure to act quickly if he is to prevent another murder.

When the body of an amateur flautist, Tony Miller, shot by his own gun, is found on the secluded estate of Lord & Lady Bottrell, it is assumed that he killed himself. But Wycliffe senses there is more to the case than first meets the eye. As he unravels the dead man's last days, another mystery is revealed - the disappearance of a maid from the Bottrell household. Family feuds and illicit relationships are uncovered - and then another body is found.

Wycliffe is brought in when an elderly bedridden woman is found dead, her body locked in a freezer, and a pregnant teenager, Hilda Clemo, from a bizarre family vanishes from her Cornish village. As fears for her safety grow, Wycliffe questions the family, whose feuding uncovers some dark secrets. Wycliffe has to unpick the tangled web of intrigue and greed.

When the Reverend Jordan arrives at the village church, he discovers the partially clothed body of Jessica Dobell, the church cleaner, spreadeagled below the cross. A satanic cult is thought to be behind the gruesome death, but Wycliffe believes responsibility lies elsewhere. There is an air of violent hatred in the village, not all of it directed towards the dead woman.

When a fishing-boat owner, Harry Tremaine, is killed in the explosion of his fishing boat, suspicion falls on the man's son, who stands to inherit everything, but Wycliffe remains unconvinced. There's also a local developer who wants to build a marina on the quayside Tremaine owned; Tremaine's partner has been having an affair with his wife; and there is a mysterious recipient of £500 in cash from Tremaine on the first day of every month.