On a rain-swept Derbyshire moor, local foxhounds find the body of a man whose head has been crushed. Sent to investigate, Detectives DS Diane Fry and DC Ben Cooper become entangled in the violent world of hunting and hunt saboteurs, horse theft and a little-known sector of the meat trade. As Fry attempts to unravel the victim's business interests, Cooper realises that the answers might lie in the 'plague village' of Eyam, where an outbreak of Black Death is now a tourist attraction.