After her adventures in Brought to Book, Rona Parish is back, ready to embark on a new assignment which - on the surface - seems tame by comparison. She is to write a series of articles to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the local market town of Buckford, looking at the history of its churches, schools and celebrated inhabitants. Having found lodgings with a young divorcee, Nuala Banks, Rona arranges a series of interviews with various notable people in the town. But her first encounter with Nuala's aunt and former Sunday school organiser, the elderly Edna Rosebury, raises unresolved questions about a recent tragic murder - and Rona's investigative antennae are instantly on the alert...