Things seem comfortably routine one Ash Wednesday evening in the English village of Hollingthorpe. The regulars have come together to turn the Devil's Stone, the age-old custom of shifting a one-ton boulder in the churchyard. An odd, back-breaking tradition that defies logic¾except that to dispense with it always brings misfortune on the villagers during that year. Yet within minutes of shifting the great boulder, misfortune strikes. One of the participants lies beside the stone, very bloody and very dead.

Detective-Sgt Brenna Taylor and the CID Team join their boss, Geoffrey Graham, who's already at the village. In the midst of their murder inquiry, one of the Team is attacked—left for dead, beaten in the same manner as the original murder. Has she discovered something in the wood pertaining to the killer? Add a missing boy days later and a convicted felon who has it in for Graham... Things threaten to spin out of the Team's control.

This quickly comes true in a midnight, rain-lashed forest, plunging Brenna into very personal emotions. And through it all, the killer silently slips into and out of their lives, thumbing his nose at her and the entire CID team, ready to strike again.