Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin (1986) is a crime novel by Cornish writer W. J. Burley [1] featuring his series detective, Charles Wycliffe.
With his wife away for Christmas, Wycliffe readily accepts an invitation to stay with a Penzance lawyer and his family in their remote country home; although when he arrives he finds the atmosphere less than welcoming, and the unease soon culminates in the disappearance of a young girl, whom he had seen playing the Virgin Mary in a recent nativity play.
He soon discovers that the missing youth was unpopular in her local community, and even her parents seem indifferent about the whole affair. Nevertheless, the detective leads a mass search for her and is soon caught up in a major criminal investigation...