A chance discovery of something unimaginable will steer Detective Patrick Gutteridge’s life down a path littered with memories of his past, memories he’s spent a decade trying to forget.

For two years, Gloucester’s provincial streets have glowed to the media interest gifted by the works of an anonymous graffiti artist ― Tick-Tock. But the art is changing, distorting, each piece becoming more perverse and contentious than the last. Only DI Gutteridge sees a pattern forming which points to something far more sinister looming on the horizon. Can he decipher it in time to prevent the impending storm, or will the city be forced to wear the infamy of a series of events so shocking, it threatens to stain its streets forever.

Over a year has passed since The Spatchcock Killer’s reign of terror reached its blood-drenched conclusion, but DI Gutteridge is still haunted by memories of the case. With flashbacks of discovering his wife’s mutilated remains twelve years earlier also plaguing his sleep, Gutteridge is beginning to find his corrupted life overwhelming.

But then a new crime scene materialises, one that threatens to contaminate his world even further. A crime scene that in every conceivable way seems to be a verbatim copy of one from a long way in his past. There is also a note pinned to the body, a note addressed to him.

Could one of Gutteridge’s oldest and most terrifying nemesis be back in his world to reap revenge, or is there a copy-cat intent on riding the wave of The Shropshire Ripper’s infamy? Increasingly aware that the pressures of his life are beginning to change him, will Gutteridge discover the truth and bring the killer to justice?

The finish of school life should have gifted Lucy Claybourne an uncomplicated summer, that is, until she makes the decision to revisit Hobswyke Hall ― a sprawling, derelict manor house that was once her childhood home.

Half a decade has passed since Lucy and her mother abandoned the gothic monstrosity that lords over the estate that surrounds it like a spider in its web and moved into the gatehouse on the far side of the grounds, a move supposedly made as a money saving exercise. But upon reacquaintance, Lucy realises there had to be more to the move than money, and it becomes her intention to find out what?

Then the groundkeeper's son, Sam Fletcher, makes a terrifying discovery, a discovery that will alter the path of Lucy's life in ways that will make her question everything she's ever known, and anything she's ever been told by those she holds dearest to her heart.

There is something very wrong with Hobswyke Hall, but some things are better off left to rot.

When Marianna Pascal discovers a secret drawer in the basement of her home – a drawer filled to the brim with hexes and spell-settings that seem in some way related to her and her partner, Samuel. She is unaware of the ramifications her discovery will have on the course of her happy existence.

Lying in the core of the drawer are dolls of her and Samuel, bound and stitched together, with hair that can only have grown from her head, and clothes made from garments believed lost or misplaced. She breaks the bonds and removes the doll, and thus begins the undoing of the spells that have controlled her life and her love for the past two decades.

Samuel must act fast to prevent losing everything he's embroiled into his skewed existence, stepping further into the world of the occult than he ever has before to prevent losing everything he's contrived into his undeserving life, but to what end?

The Puppet Tears takes you on a journey inside a warped mind, a mind that long ago rejected a reality that denied it the life it craved. But all things in life must come at a price. Is Samuel willing to pay the piper?