Clare Paling - clever, inquisitive, sceptical - has had to move to the drowsy village of Laddenham because of her highly successful husband's job. She is well-educated, attractive, has a nice house and wonderful children, but finds it hard to fit into the small, closed community, with its interesting sideshows of adultery, gossip and carefully adhered-to pecking orders.

It takes her involvement in the church's fourth-centenary pageant and an unpardonable death to remind Clare, who had almost forgotten, that however hard you try to make sense of it, the world is a very uncertain place.