Reverend rascal Will Davenport is remarkably calmer than his parish team about festive preparations for his formal installation as vicar by the near-senile bishop, although running late, he soon abandons his refusal to help Geordie with another crime case when told it concerns a young boy who doesn't speak but has blood on him. Will's sign-language clarifies he's a mute farm boy, Adam Carter, who is afraid to return to be returned home. His Mennonite father Ernest Carter scolds the shivering cutie a murderer, allegedly for hiding in the barn attic, followed by his tyrannical mother Miriam, who fell fatally. However she was clearly pushed, so the sleuths must work out by which member of the terrorized farm family, including grandmother, or farmhand-lover. They all seem to lie and cover for another, Adam's confession probably false.
—KGF Vissers