Those faint whispers suddenly turned to loud, mocking laughter in Hoad's head. The picture of Quincy Pitt really looked alive and moving now. The eyes were becoming larger and larger until they bored into his brain.

The mouth was yawning open, revealing more of those beast-like teeth.

And as the poison filled their brains and lungs, so sanity left them.

Ronan Bell is a placid, unimaginative antiques restorer whose humdrum life is suddenly turned on its head. He finds himself drawn into a world of Satanism and witchcraft, compounded when his long estranged wife, Estelle, comes back into his life. She is under the spell of Felix Hoad, head of the all-powerful QPL Corporation, and as Ronan tries to take on the mighty QPL, he is drawn into a battle to the death with the evil empire.

Each path he takes leads to madness, murder and the Church of Black Sparrows.