It’s Halloween in Oxford, and mischief is in the air — and, as it happens, murder. A woman is found dead, a stake through her heart, a bulb of garlic in her mouth. It’s a surreal crime, and an intensely personal one for Dr. Laura Hobson. The victim is Ligeia Willard, one of Hobson’s old college housemates. It seems to be a terrible coincidence, one that has left Hobson disoriented with grief. When another murder takes place in a house where Hobson once lived, Detective Inspector Lewis (Kevin Whately) and Detective Sergeant Hathaway (Laurence Fox) must confront horrifying possibilities — Is Hobson connected to the crime?