A multiple rapist is on the loose, a woman reports that her baby has been stolen and someone is trying to blackmail the local supermarket by poisoning some of the stock. When two young girls are reported missing, the Denton crime wave reaches terrifying heights.

As DI Jack Frost staggers exhausted from case to case, something nasty arrives at the station in the form of Detective Chief Inspector Skinner. The scheming, slippery Skinner clearly has his eye on the Superintendent's office, but his first job is to manipulate the transfer of the unorthodox Frost to another division. Will Frost find the missing girls before his new nemesis forces him away from Denton once and for all?