Who is The Sandman: ghost, fictional creation or real-life serial killer?
A murderer is targeting random people around Toronto. In each case the victim's dismembered body is found in a place associated with sand - a lake shore, a sandpit, a building site.
Patrick Rush, a failed journalist, joins a creative writing group in an effort to kickstart his novelistic career. The Kensington Circle has eight members, the most shadowy of which is Angela, the only one with an interesting story to tell: that of a child-stealing killer, called the Sandman, who has emerged from the narrator's dreams. Rush begins to be haunted by the figure of the Sandman, whom he imagines stalking his wife and child, and in his imagination connects him to the killer terrorising the city
The Circle breaks apart, its members disappearing back to their own lives, and Rush himself is widowed. When he hears of Angela's death in a car crash, he decides to adapt her story, passing it off as his own. The resulting novel is an overnight sensation but Patrick's success is overshadowed by disturbing news: members of the group are dying. And then the true horror - Patrick's child is snatched.
Can the Sandman be real or is one of the Kensington Circle responsible? Where is little Sam? Patrick goes on a terrifying journey into the unknown to track a killer and save his boy - but is he heading towards his own death...
