On a chilly morning in February, DCI Claire Pierce is called off her latest investigation—an animal sacrifice case—to a graveyard in Nottinghamshire, where a murder scene looks set to re-open an old case.Three times before, Yorkshire's Ritual Crime Unit tried and failed to catch the "Valentine Vampire," a ritualistic serial killer whose victims show up drained of blood. Fourteen years after the last deaths, it seemed the case would never be solved.Now there's another body, and if the killer's pattern holds up, there are at least two still to come. Last time, Pierce's superiors had insisted she hunt for a monster she knows doesn't exist, that can fly and turn to mist; the media had a field day, and the "Vampire" became the subject of a best-selling book. This time she's determined to find and stop the all-too-human culprit before it's too late.

A tough, hard-nosed career officer in the male-dominated world of British policing, DCI Claire Pierce of North Yorkshire Police heads Northern England's underfunded and understaffed Ritual Crime Unit. Unregarded by the traditional police, struggling with an out-sized caseload, Pierce is about to tackle her most shocking case so far.Following reports of unlicensed shapeshifters running wild in the Dales, DCI Pierce leads a failed raid to capture the skinbinder responsible. While the dust is still settling, a team from Counter Terrorism turns up and takes the case off her.Pursuing the case off the record, she uncovers something murkier and more terrible than she suspected. Has her quarry achieved the impossible and learned to bind human skin?

It was just a bit of fun, a local legend. The Devil's Footsteps: thirteen stepping stones, and whichever one you stopped on in the rhyme could predict how you would die. A harmless game for kids - and nobody ever died from a game. But it's not a game to Bryan. He's seen the Dark Man, because the Dark Man took his brother five years ago. He's tried to tell himself that it was his imagination, that the Devil's Footsteps are just stones and the Dark Man didn't take Adam. But Adam's still gone. And then Bryan meets two other boys who have their own unsolved mysteries. Someone or something is after the children in the town. And it all comes back to the rhyme that every local child knows by heart: Thirteen steps to the Dark Man's door, Won't be turning back no more . . .