An administrator at Canterbury Cathedral, Richard Harrison isn?t much troubled by a nasty anonymous letter that has turned up, alleging sexual misconduct in a local parish. But the situation turns much more than unpleasant when Harrison stumbles on a brutal double-murder. Following the leads will demand that Harrison investigate not only the sale of a 200-year-old cottage but also, bizarrely, the work of Christopher Marlowe, the 16th-century playwright. And to find the truth he will have to ask many hard questions of the Church he loves, and shiver through that midnight hour when, in the words of Marlowe's Dr Faustus, ?the clock will strike, and the devil will come.?