Edinburgh, Scotland.
The early 1930s. Young Craig,
a desperate runaway, goes to the top of a church to throw
himself off. But he is saved by a strange stone man, a
gargoyle named Silex, who can move and speak but cannot
leave the church parapet. Silex runs a detective agency and
hires Craig to be his chief clue finder, since his last assistant
has mysteriously disappeared and the church’s priest, Father
Harris, is getting too old and sick to help.
Shocked, yet happy to have important work to do, Craig
signs on. Together, the gargoyle and the young lad solve the
mysterious murder of an earl, as well as the deaths of several
street people. But the solution points to a deeper, uglier
scenario. One that involves freeing the Stone Man from his
bonds, which will turn him from a force for good back into
the evil demon he once was. In that form, he would threaten
not only the church, Edinburgh, and Scotland, but indeed the
entire world.
Silex doesn’t want that. Craig doesn’t want that. Father Harris
dies to see that it can never happen. And yet the terror might
well be starting up all over again.
5
