A blood-curdling howl haunts moonlit Skiddaw Forest – its source the precipitous cliffs known as Dead Crags. Locals evoke the legend of the Black Dog, harbinger of misfortune, devil’s familiar – an ancient myth revived in living memory by the unexplained death of Piet Crow, controversial founder in 1959 of Dead Crags Zoo. If the curse blighted Old Man Crow, could it now be visited upon his descendants? Elderly granddaughter Antonia is found dead beneath the crags. Her twin Vivienne survives a life-threatening ordeal. Murder? Attempted murder? Or innocent coincidence? Skelgill is torn – until a long-serving zoo hand falls victim to a rifle bullet. Unearthly baying hound there may be, it takes a finger to pull a trigger – and human predators circle the ailing zoo and its valuable land. A property tycoon with bulldozers at the ready. A titled aristocrat who covets ancestral hunting grounds. Volatile animal rights activists that protest malpractice. Dark clouds gather above the isolated Northern Fells – some great storm is brewing – but to divine its nature defies all logical investigation. Skelgill is drawn inexorably to Dead Crags – where presentiment prickles at his skin. But will his legendary intuition read the signs before the curse makes its final destructive strike?