Jonathan Appleford had a strict upbringing and continued to live a sheltered life during his university and theological college days.

In his final year of ordination training in Dublin, he was offered the opportunity to spend a term in an Anglo-Catholic theological college in Cambridge. It was to prove to be a transformative experience.

He returned to Ireland to begin his curacy with the Venerable Guy Morgan, rector of St. Stephen's, Lislea, a flagship of evangelicalism. But, unknown to Guy Morgan, Jonathan's theological and liturgical preferences had changed.

Deacon tells the story of Jonathan's difficult curacy and his subsequent first appointment to a remote country parish, engineered by his cunning and manipulative archdeacon/rector.

Readers of Bishop and Priest, both by Ted Woods, will recognise many of the other characters in the story as well as the Venerable Guy Morgan. There is Laurence Finch, principal of St. Olaf's school, the Revd. Wendy Morris, rector of St. Olaf's and DCI Frank Mulready who, once again, is called to solve a murder in the fictitious Church of Ireland diocese of Daneford.