Everyone in Ashford stays out of Red Cap Woods and avoids the megaliths called the Goblins' Playground. If dark elves don't wash their caps in your blood, you might run into the Lord of the Woods, never a good thing. When ne'er-do-well Allan Cutter staggers into the snug bar of the Three Crowns and dies, no one is surprised. After all, he took up residence in that abandoned caravan deep in the heart of darkness, didn't he? And everyone nods knowingly when Oscar Lent is murdered in the shadow of the Goblins' Playground. He wanted to develop the ancient woods. Dark powers do not tolerate meddlers, as others discover over the next few days. But DCI Arthur Ravyn suspects the work of a human hand, and he will not stop till he finds the truth, even if he has to battle the powers of hell and darkness. Welcome to Hammershire County, where change comes slowly, if at all, where the past often intrudes upon the present, and where old things sometimes refuse to die.