The story is set in the fictional coastal town of Coldhaven, Scotland. It opens with Moira Birnie killing herself and her two sons by setting their car on fire, seemingly driven by the belief that her abusive husband is the devil incarnate.
The narrator is Michael Gardiner, who has lived in Coldhaven his whole life but feels like an outsider. He once had a romantic relationship with Moira and suspects that her surviving 14-year-old daughter Hazel may actually be his child. Obsessed with Hazel, Michael abandons his failing marriage to go on the run with her, allowing an inappropriate sexual tension to develop between them.
The novel explores the dichotomy of good and evil coexisting, with glimpses of a "terrifying wildness" lurking beneath the surface of ordinary life. It is inspired by a local myth about the devil passing through Coldhaven one snowy night, leaving cloven footprints.
With poetic prose and vivid imagery, Burnside crafts a haunting, folkloric tale that lingers in the mind like "hoofprints in freshly fallen snow." The novel's ambiguous ending leaves it open whether the devil's path led to another realm or if evil resides within mankind itself.

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