In 7th century Ireland, Fidelma of Cashal, sister to the King of Muman, and a trained da'laigh or advocate of the complex Irish code of law, and her husband Eadulf (an Angleman) are called upon to investigate the mysterious death of an eminent scholar and monk, Brother Donnchad, at the Abbey of Lios Mo'r. Fidelma soon discovers that Brother Donnchad's increasingly erratic behavior, since his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was already causing comment and concern among his fellow monks. So when he locked himself into his cell and refused to respond to repeated entreaties, the Abbot had the door to the cell broken down, only to discover Donnchad laid out upon his bed, dead, with stab wounds in his back, and all his books and papers missing.
Fidelma finds much that worries her at the Abbey: dissension among the brothers, and conflicts between those who hold to the traditional monastic rules of the Irish Church and the new, harsher rules promoted by so-called reformers from Rome.Soon she uncovers evidence of larger plots to manipulate events and provoke feuds between rival clans in the kingdom. Brother Donnchad's mother, an adherent of the new Roman practices, is spending a fortune rebuilding the Abbey in a grander style, and undermining the Abbot's authority, but the work has been disrupted by a series of fatal and near fatal accidents on the construction site.
Fidelma and Eadulf need to piece together all these disparate threads in order to discover what is really going on and who is behind these crimes, before events spiral out of control and challenge the stability of the kingdom and her brother's rule. But just when they need to work together, Fidelma and Eadulf are struggling with diverging ambitions and desires that seem to be pulling them further and further apart.
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