Based on P.D. James's best-selling novel, Death In Holy Orders is a masterly exploration of an isolated and beleaguered community coping with the evil and disruption of murder. The story is set in St. Anselm's, an Anglican theological college on a desolate stretch of the British coastline. When the body of a student is found on the shore smothered by a fall of sand, his wealthy father demands that Scotland Yard should re-examine the verdict of accidental death. Commander Dalgliesh (Martin Shaw) spent time at St. Anselm's as a boy and so agrees to pay a visit. Instead of a nostalgic return to old haunts and straightforward examination of the evidence given at the inquest, he finds himself embroiled in one of the most horrific and puzzling cases of his career. Other visitors come to the college on the weekend of his arrival. Among these is Emma Lavenham, a visiting lecturer from Cambridge University who stirs emotions he thought he had shut away. Before the weekend is over, one of these visitors will be dead.