A hundred years after an ancient demonic being is found by workers digging the Panama Canal, linguist Andrew Dennison is called in to communicate with the newly reawakened creature, teach it English, and learn its secrets.
When a woman's body is found in a North London flat clutching a bloodstained sliver of X-ray, DI Thorne discovers that the victim's mother had herself been murdered fifteen years before by the infamous serial killer Raymond Garvey. When more bodies and more fragments of X-ray are discovered, a horrifying picture emerges: a killer is targeting the children of Garvey's victims...