The village of Underhowle was on the brink of a new prosperity after half a century of decay, but now it seems destined for notoriety as the home of a serial killer. D.I. Francis Bliss, of Hereford CID, is convinced he knows where the bodies are buried, but diocesan Deliverance consultant Merrily Watkins - called in to conduct a controversial funeral - wonders if Bliss isn't blinkered by personal ambition. And are the killings in Underhowle really linked to possibly the most sickening mass-murders in British criminal history?

Meanwhile, Merrily has more intimate problems: the need for discretion over her new relationship with the musician Lol Robinson; and the alleged angelic visitations on which many heap scorn. But it is Lol who follows an unexpected path into the mind of the confessed murderer, while Merrily tries to quell her own revulsion in an effort to scrub away the psychic stain left by a dead monster.