A small English village wavers on the edge of destruction. It seems that someone can make Weston Abbas disappear and reappear at will.
The mystery is further complicated when the townspeople begin turning against each other as a result of poison pen letters. Suddenly a close community becomes disparate and nearly self-destructive.
And nature turns chaotic. Early ripening fields turn brown and brittle overnight, making harvesting impossible. Gardens become a tangle of weeds and dead summer flowers. The heat becomes appallingly oppressive.
The town and its people seem doomed to a slow and tortuous death unless someone can work out what exactly is happening. One man, Joss Darke, believes he has the answer, barring one possibility ... And if an extra-terrestrial force is responsible, then Weston Abbas is doomed to a painful death.