Nick Hansley, his wife Ena and father-in-law find that their country house, 'The Cedars', radiates a positively evil aura. Their strange neighbour Dr. Lexton calls, wanting to buy their home. But who is Dr. Lexton? And as for Ena's deceased uncle, entomologist Cyrus Odder, what was the nature of the secret experiment he had worked on there? Then after a mysterious death in the house - death spreads its net across the countryside - and the entire world...