The village square is bathed in torchlight.  Spectators huddle against the cold November night, Guy Fawkes Night.  The 400 year-old patriotic tradition of burning Guy Fawkes' effigy is beginning.  The torch extends, but the villagers recoil in horror.  Instead of the straw dummy twisting at the end of the rope, the body of an American tourist hangs there.  Detective Brenna Taylor, Derbyshire CID, is assigned to the case on a team of detectives under Detective-Chief Inspector Geoffrey Graham, a brilliant but intimidating task-master.  It is the chance that Brenna has been waiting for and she is anxious to impress Graham.  Practically everyone in the village assumes an outside suspect.  After all, a tourist was the victim.  But when the frost-covered body of one of the villagers is discovered with some of the same rope used in the first killing, the case gets ugly.  And when Brenna becomes the
target for a series of unpleasant pranks--pranks that seem more like threats--she resolves to find the killer; it is personal now.