As autumn draws in, a Pennine valley town famed for its alternative lifestyles is shocked to its core when a woman is savagely attacked.

The identity of her assailant proves illusive but her colourful past in the amateur world of adult entertainment makes her a tabloid sensation overnight. When further attacks occur, group hysteria spreads and the community seeks a scapegoat...

Journalist Roddy Mace is struggling to stay sober whilst completing the writing of a true crime book based on a previous case. Detective James Brindle, on an enforced leave of absence from secretive crime unit, Cold Storage, is rapidly unravelling without a case to focus on. The two reunite to discover how old myths align with new fears, and the deep history of folk-crimes that lie within the bleak moorlands.

In These Darkening Days a rural idyll is shattered by an outbreak of violence and a place steeped in ancient history becomes the focus of an accelerating modern media that favours immediacy over truth.