To Father Roger Dowling, St. Hilary's parish in Fox River, Illinois, seems to be buzzing with business as usual - until the wealthy retired investment adviser Mitchell Striker is found murdered in his car. The police suspect is a local gigolo, Jerome Winegar, who has mysteriously reappeared in town for the first time since he got a young girl pregnant and left her twenty years ago. The girl, Nancy, was Striker's daughter. The distraught teenager, following her father's instructions, gave up the child and married a reliable man. Now, with the Striker fortune suddenly in her hands, Nancy is beset by guilt and regret about her past. Father Dowling knew Striker as a parishioner and is troubled by Jerome Winegar's presence in Fox River. As the darkly brooding man cuts a swath through the town's female population, trouble seems to follow: there is another murder, and though Winegar is arrested, the evidence against him does not add up.