A journalist looking for a story that will launch his career gets a tip from a strange guy named Samuel, a tip that leads him to ""File 42"". But the editor of the paper informs him that ""File 42"" doesn't really exist, just made up stories. However, it soon transpires that that story had been floating around for a very long time...
After a case in which a policeman was killed in an abandoned cinema by a so-called 'wolf boy', Police Doctor Miranda Sharpe and Animal Behaviourist David Stillman are drawn in to examine the boy. Miranda begins to find herself attracted to him, and after being scratched, David soon discovers hairs sprouting all over his body.
Two detectives investigate a bizarre series of deaths, in which three victims - all killed on subsequent evenings - had had vital organs removed. The organs had been transplanted, carried out by Dr. Richard Harris, and the only other patient who had received a transplant from the surgeon was 21-year old student Leila Haze.