Every winter, the human population hibernates, but this year it is a troubled sleep—an outbreak of viral dreams has begun to kill people. Investigator Charlie Worthing joins the slightly unhinged group of misfits known as the Winter Consuls, who should have prevented the outbreak. Soon Charlie is also having these dreams, and worse, they are coming true; the perpetrators turn out to be Villains with a capital "V." In this satire by the author of the Thursday Next series, the setting is a sleep-obsessed, dystopian Britain, where a parallel mystery unfolds: who is Charlie?