Baton. Light. Chocolate. Duck. This is not DS Adams' usual kit. This is not DS Adams' usual case. She doesn't think it's anyone's usual case, not with the vanishing children and the looming bridge and the hungry river. Not with the snap-snap-snap. But six kids are missing, and she's not going to let there be a seventh. Not on her watch. And she knows how to handle human monsters, after all. How different can this really be?

DI Adams fled London to escape bridge-dwelling monsters and magical toasties - a one-time experience she's in no hurry to repeat. She's police, not some cryptid hunter. Leeds has other plans, though. Tasked with the seemingly mundane case of a missing necklace, Adams soon realises she's stumbled into something inexplicable. The trinket is dangerous, and she's the only one who recognises it for what it is - a weapon that could tear the North apart.

A call from an old colleague has DI Adams off her patch and out of her depth, dealing with a mysterious new beer that has unexpected side effects. Side effects that are much more dangerous and far-reaching than a simple hangover. Missing brewers. Inexplicable superpowers. Erratic behaviour. And it's not just the punters. Half the police in Yorkshire seem to have fallen under the beer's spell, and she's barely keeping a step ahead of them.