Retired tax inspector G. D.H. Pringle

should have known better than to return

to his roots in the ancient village of

Wuffinge Parva in East Anglia. When a

runaway hearse bearing a victim of

peculiar circumstances careens into his

car--only the first of many mishaps that

befall him--Pringle begins to regret

having made this pilgrimage.

The charming old town of his memory

has changed in many ways and is rapidly

becoming a tourist mecca. Restaurant

and hotel prices have skyrocketed, and

some of the newcomers clearly have

rubbed some of the old locals the wrong

way. And now there s a festival being

planned to celebrate the unveiling of

newly discovered Saxon wall paintings,

rumored to be the oldest Christian

paintings in England.

Amidst the excitement and tension

surrounding the festival, including an

evening of drunken revelry, Pringle

stumbles upon the body of one of the

festival organizers. And by the time file

local authorities of this sleepy village

arrive at the scene, the body has

disappeared.

Shocking revelations, misplaced

corpses, sexual misconduct, and another

murder lead Pringle and his beloved

companion, Mavis Bignell, into the thick

of the mayhem in Parva, in this delightful

addition to Pringle s adventures.