Ben Scott runs a struggling ghost tour company, running graveyard walks. In an effort to boost sales he hires two teenagers, hanging out in the graveyard. Donny Marigold is a fantasist, claiming to see ghosts and Daisy Lenin a near autistic runaway, who blossoms in her new role. They pretend to be a poltergeist and 'attack' customers, with great success - until assaults begin to happen on their own and people vanish in the cemetery.
Donny becomes convinced the graveyard harbours a real entity and begins to uncover evidence that it has influenced world events for centuries, using people as varied as Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin and David Hume. He also falls for a ghost named Grizzle, who claims her husband, a vicious mercenary during the 30 years war in Germany, holds the clue to the entity's origin. Meanwhile a disparate group of people are drawn into the graveyard's orbit for what, at first, seem to be completely different reasons.
'Doc' Menzies, recently freed from prison for maiming his wife. An alcoholic ambulance driver on charges of manslaughter. A medical salesman from Ohio. An ugly pole dancer. A gang of junkies. Ben's tour guides.
But Ben, Donny and Daisy have each been hiding secrets. As their lies unravel, they discover these people are actually linked, caught in the snare of a sinister 'Father Figure'.
Their attempts to finally put things right, leads to a horrifying showdown in the graveyard - and the terrible realization that they are their own worst enemies.
The road to hell is, indeed, paved with good intentions