Christmas Eve in the English village of Byford: Snow falls softly and persistently on the village, and the chimneys in the festively decorated houses crackle with warmth - but the Christmas idyll is abruptly disturbed. Late at night, police officer Judy Hill receives a call from her boss, Chief Inspector Lloyd: A man has been found brutally killed with a poker in the old rectory. The victim is Graham Elstow, the son-in-law of Reverend George Wheeler. The clergyman, along with his wife Marian and their daughter Joanna, feigns ignorance. However, the investigators soon discover that the murder victim was a violent tyrant and that each family member had reasons to hate him to the core.