The well-heeled village of Temple Minnis, placid, privileged and picturesque, hides its guilty secret well, presenting a facade as smooth and calm as its deep, dark lake. Thirty years before, the villagers conspired to plan and conceal a murder, but only their dying local novelist, Melissa, suffers from pangs of conscience as she races toward extinction. It takes tough words and a touch of magic from the charismatic Tanzanian vicar, once the witchdoctor of his tribe, to persuade her to write her story...but as the villagers face up to the past, their lives change irrevocably. Love turns to fury and tragedy when Simon, a farmer hampered by a surfeit of caring, and Bela, precariously straddling two strong cultures, are caught up in the revelations. This is also spiritual story where life's deeply moving traumas are not only revealed through Simon's tragic, but through comical farming, marriage, and family disasters. Through love, Simon finds a way to overcome his karma and experience universal oneness and joy.