It's the 1980s and Alistair Matheson is forging a quietly ambitious path in Government. All is going to plan until a brief encounter with a man who looks exactly like him throws Alistair's ordered world into chaos.
As this doppelgänger crosses his path time and again a series of events are set in motion with increasingly disturbing consequences. Is this double a spy? A conman? Or could he be something infinitely more sinister?
Tasked by his news editor to come up with a sensational article about old, unsolved murders, reporter Eric Braden finds himself in rural Warwickshire, investigating the horrific death of a local lothario, whose body was surrounded by pagan symbols.
The detective from the original investigation is now a broken man and reluctant to tell his story but there are others who demand answers, even all these years later. As Braden delves deeper, encountering hostility and denial at every step, he soon realises that village life is not as innocuous as the locals would have him believe and that something unimaginably dark still resides here, waiting to be released...
The Omega Factor: the end of scientific knowledge. And beyond. This is the remit of Department Seven, a secret government unit established to explore the paranormal. But can such supernatural powers ever be controlled?
