Taylor probes the secret history of murder, delving deep into the past to find the origins of a serial killer in his second novel of the Roth Trilogy. Here is the story of David Byfield, a widowed parish priest with a dark past and a darker future. The suburban town of Roth is haunted by its past, and struggling to break free. But by initiating a series of gruesome murders and mutilations, echoing crimes committed years before, someone in the village is trying to assure history's tight grip over the present. The community has no shortage of suspects, from the village vicar in the throes of a midlife crisis to the unusual brother and sister newly relocated to the town of Roth. Audrey Oliphant, churchwarden, spinster and secret admirer of the vicar, fancies herself as Miss Marple, and when the corpse of her cat, Lord Peter, is found nailed to the church door, she decides to investigate. By the end of her investigation, two people are dead, one is in jail, and a fourth is insane.