‘It was a raw, drizzly day when the Reverend Bob Dexter paid his first visit to the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, South Barsham, Norfolk. He went on a Sunday afternoon, when all the members of his future flock were safely at home tucking into their Sunday lunches. The church presented a less than prepossessing aspect to him as he approached on foot, his car stowed on the grass verge opposite the Two Magpies pub. Last autumn’s leaves still choked the uncut grass between the rakishly tilted gravestones in the churchyard, and the unclipped yew trees dripped dankly on his head as he passed beneath them; Bob Dexter smoothed the unwelcome drops from his wavy hair. A few stubbornly optimistic early daffodils, huddling in the shelter of the church walls, showed defiant yellow faces to the overgrown elderberry bushes.'
Reverend Bob Dexter, the evangelical vicar of a traditionally Anglo-Catholic church in a small Norfolk parish, has a gift for provoking the wrath of his parishioners. Add in the displeasure of a group of animal rights activists and his less than happy home life, few are surprised at the events that unfold.
