On a grey October morning, the strangled body of a teenager is found in the North Yorkshire city of Eborby, a mutilated doll lying by her side. Singmass Close, where the girl is found, has a famously sinister past. Reputedly haunted by the ghosts of children, it was the hunting ground of the Doll Strangler, a ruthless killer of the 1950s who was never brought to justice.

With the recent disappearance of another young female and an escaped convict at large, this horrific murder stretches Detective Inspector Joe Plantagenet's team to the limit. Is a copycat killer on the loose, or could the Doll Strangler really be back? As the bodies start mounting up and Joe's questioning brings him closer to the real strangler, he comes to suspect a shockingly creepy connection between all three cases ...