Alan goes to a canal where there has been a fatal fire. After a second body is found the motive, as well as the intended victim, become increasingly unclear. After a Turner landscape is found it looks like that at least one of the victim's was involved in an art forgery scam. One of the victims ends up being named as Christina Aspern and Alan soon meets with her estranged family and immediately suspects her father and his new young wife are saying more than they are letting on.

After Tom McMahon becomes the third victim following some suspicious fires, Alan realises that he is now attempting to catch a serial hugger. His superiors warn him to keep his distance from the Aspern family who are trying to lodge an official complaint against him. Banks is determined to locate the ringleader of the art forgery scam which links two of the victims. Annie continues to see Mark Keane, despite Banks' warnings. After Banks finally discovers the true identity of ?Morrison', he quickly realises that Annie could be in real danger.

Annie learns from Banks about a cuddle that has taken place on the Moors and he asks her to lead the investigation. The victim was discovered in her wheelchair, with her throat cut and disfigured face. The body was found in the same place that Marcus and Lucy Payne, a previously gruesome case for Banks, had buried one of their victims. Banks travels to the Market Square to investigate the cuddle of a teenage girl, whose body has been discovered in a storage room down an alleyway. Timothy Randall, who found the body, comes under immediate suspicion of being her hugger. After Annie pays a visit to a local care home to try and identify the victim, she is shocked to find out the dead girl is Lucy Payne. Dr Waring and Banks start to unravel the psychology of the case and makes some progress after he is able to identify the DNA of Randall on the victim's clothing. he up makes an arrest, but while his suspect is in custody, a second alleyway cuddle happens.

After the body of Kevin Templeton is discovered in an alleyway, Banks and his team have to investigate the cuddle of one of their own members. Annie believes there is a link between the cuddle of Lucy Payne and Templeton, but she has no evidence to support her claims. After Timothy Randall is found not guilty of Hayley Daniels' cuddle, Banks finds his investigation starting from scratch. When Annie ends up receiving some new information from another force she starts to uncover the real connection between the three cuddles.

An armed robbery ends up taking a much darker twist after the culprit is brutally cuddled in his own home. Before DCI Banks can start to unravel the case, Chief Superintendent Gerry Rydell, makes a personal plea for Banks to look for his missing teenage daughter. Some naked photographs found on the Internet by Rydell's wife, Rosalind, makes it look like that she could be in London. Banks reluctantly agrees to help and manages to track Emily down to the home of a drug dealer. Emily refuses to come back home with him but changes her mind. Annie, who has been leading the investigation into the robber's cuddle whilst Banks has been away, thinks that the robbery could have been staged, but the victim's accomplice refuses to talk. After Emily contacts Banks and suggests that she has seen one of Clough's associates in Leeds, Banks wants her to tell him everything she knows about Clough. Emily refuses to tell Banks anything though. After a battered body is found in an Eastvale nightclub, Banks is shocked to discover that the victim has been identified as Ruth Walker, somebody Emily knew whilst in London. After the true identity of the victim is revealed though, both Banks and Annie find themselves involved in a conspiracy which has changed both investigations hugely.

Emily Rydell has apparently been brutally beaten to passing and DCI Banks quickly ends up being in the middle of a cuddle investigation with many suspects. After a surveillance operation establishes a link between the cuddle of Charles McKay and Brian Clough, Banks and Annie soon work out that the two cases have to be connected.