On a desolate stretch of the East Anglian coast, high atop a sweep of cliffs, sits the theological college of St. Anselm's. Down below, smothered by a fall of sand, lies the body of a young ordinand, the son of a powerful business mogul who wants Scotland Yard to investigate his death. Dalgliesh, doubting there is much to uncover in the case, agrees to go, motivated only by a desire to revisit a place where he spent several happy summers in his boyhood. Yet no sooner does he arrive than the college is torn apart by a sacrilegious murder and Dalgliesh finds himself embroiled in one of the most puzzling and horrific cases of his career: no one is above suspicion, and suspects abound.