It is the 1970s. A young woman, Rosie, moves to a small remote seaside village, readying to welcome her first child. But with her partner working away on an oil rig, the house isn't the sanctuary she'd hoped for - the situation made worse by the regular blackouts due to the ongoing miners' strikes. And the villagers seem friendly enough, but some of them are taking an uncomfortably close interest in her pregnancy. Before long, Rosie notices strange noises and unexplained shadows in the corners of the cottage. As her birth date moves closer and the blackouts intensify, her isolation begins to consume her until she feels that she is losing her grip on reality. But Rosie isn't the only one in the village who has cause to fear the dark . . .

When mysterious symbols appear as graffiti around Oxford, lexicographer Martha Thornhill recognises them from an alphabet created by a deceased writer whose papers she once worked on. But this is no publicity stunt, and tensions intensify when further graffiti is found near the body of a university lecturer. Martha is not the only one to have doubts when the suspicious death is assumed by police to be a suicide. Called upon to lend their linguistic expertise to the case, Martha and her colleagues begin to unearth a tragedy that extends beyond the ancient walls of the university. As new messages portend more death, it's clear that a spirit of vengeance is stalking the city's streets, and may be reaching out towards them too.

Lies That Summon the Night Special Hardbook.