Pastor Daniel Vedra has a wife and three children. He ministers to prisoners and is a sought-after commentator on the problems facing the rapidly changing society of the Czech Republic. But privately he struggles with the knowledge that he has never recaptured the depth of intimacy he had with his first wife, who died suddenly and young.

With the arrival of a beautiful married stranger who reminds him of his lost Jitka, Daniel finds his heart reawakening. But their affair will lead him to betray everything he has lived for: his family, his vocation, and his future. In a Czech Republic in the throes of complete social and economic upheaval, the order that had underpinned Daniel's life falls apart, his intimacy with God splintered by what he has found with another man's wife.