First Death - an accident or a homicide? Second Death - a murder or a suicide? Events unfold quickly on a single Monday, the first day of classes for Professor Michael Branden's new semester. The tragedies envelope a Schwartzentruber sect, the most conservative of all Amish peoples, and Branden and Sheriff Bruce Robertson must wrestle with cultural and religious barriers in order to investigate. To make matters worse, a mother of seven Schwartzentruber children has apparently left with her youngest daughter Esther, in order to escape her dangerously depressed husband. Has she really left six children behind?