- The suicide of Hathaway's old friend tests his relationship with Lewis as he must come to terms with ambivalence about his own sexual past.
- Lady Hugh, the intolerant Bible-fanatic president of Oxford's Mayfield college, turns against anything gay. Shortly after the popular and decent student Will McEwan shoots himself in the head in St. Mark's church after waving a revolver at Reverend Francis King, who is himself found tortuously murdered by a hot poker in the head the next day. The link between both victims is the Garden, a pious society offering Christian answers to youngsters' contemporary question--its emblem being a Phoenix, which both Will's suicide note that says, "I lost my way between Gethsemane and Calvary," and a message on King's door hat says, "Life born of fire," refer to. Lewis's partner, Detective Sergeant James Hathaway, was a friend of Will's in school and again at university, but his brutally gay-bashing father Henry McEwan apparently repudiates Will posthumously finding out, and his mother believed he was going steady with a nice girl. Lewis keeps digging in all those circles, discovering more secrets and deceit. More blood is to be spilled, and the meaning of names proves crucial....—KGF Vissers
- DI Lewis and DS Hathaway investigate the suicide of Will McEwan, a young man who turned a gun on himself in church with vicar Reverend King standing in front of him. It turns out that Hathaway knew McEwan from their teen years and his time at the seminary, but they drifted apart and hadn't seen each for some time. Hathaway is convinced that his one-time friend is gay, but the dead man's mother tells them that her son had a girlfriend, Zoë Kenneth. When Reverend King is found murdered the next day--he is found bound to a chair having been attacked with a hot poker--the police try to unravel the connection, if any, between the two men. There also seems to be a connection between the two dead men and a Christian outreach organization once run by King and known as the Garden. It is also apparent, however, that Hathaway knows more about the past than he has let on.—garykmcd
- A young man commits suicide in a church. Shortly afterwards the priest of the church is murdered. Lewis and Hathaway start to suspect a link, especially as the man was homosexual and there are homophobic elements in senior positions at the University. Hathaway has a personal connection to the first death having been a friend of the man in their teenage years.—grantss
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