Something is very wrong in Hollyhill...When Nesta Davies comes from Oxford in 1533 to care for her son's ailing wife she learns that an old woman has died there in mysterious circumstances. After a young mother is lured to her death, saved only by Nesta's intervention, she vows to uncover the truth. As a midwife who delivers babies and lays out the dead, Nesta has access to every household in the district. Can what she learns there help her to solve the hamlet's crime wave?