Joe Donovan was once a renowned investigative journalist. Since the unsolved disappearance of his 6-year-old son, he's lived a broken, reclusive life in a bleak Northumberland village. He's abruptly thrust back into the real world when Jamal, a teenage boy on the run for his life, desperately needs Donovan's help. Jamal has in his possession something that holds a key to Donovan's past, a past that can only be unlocked by forcing him to make a terrifying journey into the present. As long buried secrets begin to emerge and bodies pile up, Donovan finds himself caught up in a harrowing web of fear. In order to survive and uncover the disturbing truth at the heart of the dangerous world he's found himself in, he puts together a team to help him, a team of outsiders that doesn't care which side of the law it operates on. And Donovan will surely need their help. For he and Jamal are being hunted. The Hammer, a death metal addicted serial killer, is on their trail. A killer with a 100 per cent success rate, a killer who doesn't know the meaning of the word mercy.