It is Halloween, the day of in-between. Detective Chief Inspector Daw is in pursuit of a suspect serial killer who doesn’t want to be caught. A car chase ensues leading to the tracks of the high railway viaduct in Durham, England . Both men crash on the viaduct, then tumble to their deaths on the rooves of the terraced houses below. Or do they?

Powerful forces of life, death and existence fight over the life of DCI Daw as his mangled body lies on a hospital bed. At the same time an obsessed music student attacks his wife Eleanor and they plunge to their deaths. Or do they?

After a titanic struggle Daw is told he and his wife Eleanor can live, on one condition: that he solves the cases put before him until midnight on Halloween. The snag? He is not told what heinous act it is that he has to stop, even though it is of world shattering importance. Agree, and at midnight he will die, but the love of his life, Eleanor, will be allowed to live. Does he agree?