Old Admiral Fleetwood departs the world and the Fleetwood family home, Falsefoot Ferns. Mr Dreadful, trusted attorney to the family, must carry out the old man's final dark request. Can a tiny pair of red shoes, buried deep in the walls of Falsefoot Ferns, be the key to unlocking the hidden door of an unspeakably evil society?
Dreadful follows carefully the creeping tendrils of old sin that stretch far beyond Falsefoot's rolling moors. Illuminated against the ghostly, freezing sea-haars and wreathed in wild Yorkshire storms are little red shoes...