Uptown – the depressed Victorian slum area of Monkhampton long overdue for development – is dying: its shopping precinct boarded up, its church abandoned, its people moved away – into thin air, it seems. At the heart of Uptown, in Salvation, an affectionate white Newfoundland recovers slowly from the vicious maltreatment of his previous owner. And as Leader regains his strength, his coats begins to change colour and he grows – and he grows…Detective Inspector Ben Wilson, investigating a strange case of arson in Uptown, is attacked by a pack of dogs turned feral – a pack that behaves like a disciplined army. Then there are the murders…and Wilson begins to see a hideous connection; a link that shatters all the comfortable preconception about domestic pets. If he and the eccentric Professor Harker are correct, man’s best friend is now man’s most dangerous enemy – and beyond human control. Cover art by Alun Hood.