George Naylor, an Anglican cleric, has lost his faith, and not for the first time. He withdraws to the bosom of his brother Edward's family in the Oxfordshire village of Plumley, even though neither Edward nor any of his flock has any sense of religion, and regard Uncle George as rather a joke. But the episcopal establishment does not easily relinquish its backsliding clergy, and George's refuge is soon invaded by the indefatigable Father Hooker. Bizarre encounters and adventures follow, in railway compartments and country churchyards, in Blackwell's and the Bodleian. And events take a decidely topical turn when the presence is revealed nearby of a hush-hush government research laboratory.