Nick Hansley and his young wife and father-in-law soon find that The Cedars, the isolated country house Ena has inherited, has more than just a sinister appearance—it radiates a positively evil aura.

Soon after moving in, they are visited by a strange figure of a man—Dr. Lexton, their nearest neighbour, who tries to persuade them to sell the house to him. But who is Dr. Lexton, and what was the nature of the secret experiment that Ena's deceased uncle, entomologist Cyrus Odder, had carried out at the house?

It is not long before there is a mysterious death in the house, and then death spreads its net across the countryside—and the entire world...