Within The Dark Volumeresides every reader's blackest nightmare. On a Barren coast, young heiress Miss Temple awakes from a fever to discover herself friendless, alone - and having shot her fiancé stone dead. Fleeing from suspicious villagers and attacks by 'wolves,' Miss Temple finds herself with a most unlikely companion in the shape of the seductive and deadly Contessa de Lacquer-Sforza. Meanwhile, assassin Cardinal Chang is following an orgy of destruction left by debauched aristocrat Francis Xonck, whose mind and body have been corrupted by a mysterious 'process.' Xonck leads Chang to the ruins of Harschmort House, where a mysterious and decidedly vile book is being hunted. Elsewhere Dr Svenson accompanies a sick woman whose memories have been drawn from her by a book of blue glass. Hoping that what she can remember will unravel the mystery of a diabolical cabal bent on world dominion, Svenson creeps ever closer to their dark treachery... As Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang and Dr Svenson uncover the devilish schemes of their deadly enemies, so the terrifying secrets contained in The Dark Volumeare revealed one by one...