Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Autumn 1996, and things can only get better - or so believes the Reverend John Gore bound for the North-East after a decade's absence, charged with the mission of 'planting' a new church in the deprived West End of town. But on his return to a Victorian city in the throes of 'regeneration', Gore finds his task complicated by run-ins with three impressive locals, all of whom he needs to successfully bring off his mission. Slowly these relationships draw him into a moral maze, as he learns more than he wished about the secrets people keep so as to live with themselves.