Close to where the body was found, a travelling gospel crusade is setting up its tent. The Reverend Michael Davey's road-crew have no information to offer on the killing, but Detective Sergeant Cal Donovan is stunned to see among them a face from his childhood. Because Liam Brady is officially dead . . .
Then another girl is murdered while exercising her pony in a public park. The killings have two things in common: the youth of the victims, and the profoundly vicious knife wounds.
It looks as though a serial killer is on the loose and as hysteria sweeps Castlemere, Liz Graham begins to think the unthinkable . . . Could powerful, charismatic Michael Davey have brought more to the town than the promise of eternal salvation?