England is in crisis. Food is scarce, the weather has turned treacherous, and foxes - though almost extinct - have become objects of terror, believed to stalk the land leaving death, destruction and moral corruption in their wake. The farm of Judith and Samuel Covey has already been marked by tragedy: their son was mysteriously drowned, leaving the couple devastated. Now they are under investigation by William Bloor, a thin, ascetic young foxfinder, who sets out to discover whether they are the victims of an infestation with the icy implacability of a witch-hunting zealot. Seditious whispers among the neighbours - could the evil of 'the beast' be a politically propagated myth? - make the Coveys' predicament more precarious.
