West Sussex New Englander Dwight Delaney, traumatised by his mother's unsolved murder, longs to blot out his troubled past. He leaves the States and buys a country house set in West Sussex woodlands. But he can't escape his tragic memories. The springtime woods, serene and captivating, are calming. Dwight is thrilled to meet neighbours Valerie Brooke and her seventeen-year-old daughter Emily. But Dwight's beloved dog Sheba noses out weird happenings in the woods. The uncanny parallels between past and present are at first startling, then uncomfortable and, eventually, threatening. Dwight recognises a disturbed personality at work and knows that this can only lead to tragedy. He warns Valerie that both she and Emily are in real danger. Valerie brushes his caution aside. But Dwight can sense evil lurking, feel it. Is misfortune shadowing him across the Atlantic? The woodland incidents escalate. Dwight's troubled past alerts him that something terrible, sinister and completely overwhelming is about to happen. When it does he's shocked into a new consciousness. The climax is as astonishing to Dwight as it is to everybody else.