As the summer of 1322 at last brings the sun to Devonshire, it seems that Sticklepath remains cloaked in a grim, evil darkness. An afternoon of innocent adventure leads to gruesome terror when two playmates uncover the skeleton of a girl. The body is that of ten-year-old Aline, who disappeared six years ago.
Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King's peace, and his friend, Bailiff Simon Puttock, are summoned to investigate the death, and soon discover that Aline is not the only young girl to have been murdered in recent years. The villagers have been concealing not only a serial killer, but, judging by the state of the bodies, a cannibal. If the rumours are to be believed, it could even be a vampire!
That would explain the haunted looks in the eyes of so many villagers, and the strange noises heard late at night from the Sticklepath cemetery . . .
