When Carmel McAlistair sees what appears to be a garroting occur during a local Newfoundland festival, she doesn't believe her own eyes. Did a blond woman actually fling a cord around a man's neck and strangle him to death? It was late at night and in a field at a distance--and the twosome Carmel saw were in the middle of an unruly crowd of masked revelers. It was probably her eyes playing a trick on her, she thinks. That is, until the next morning when she revisits the scene and discovers the man's body. The dead man turns out to be a local Reverend--minister to a strange fringe congregation. Possible motives quickly pile up. Carmel, who is newly arrived home from a long working trip, just wants to settle in her little cabin home for the Christmas holidays, but the gruesome crime keeps rearing its ugly head--and soon another cleric is found murdered in the same horrifying way. Maybe Carmel's new tenant with his amazing computer program that can determine a killer from various crime scene data will reveal the murderer before another minister is strangled. Or maybe Carmel herself can aid the local investigator to track down this murderer.