The brutal murder of a woman in a lonely beach cottage, huge footprints found nearby, a meandering tramp singing snatches of opera in the night! Superintendent Minter - "Sooper", rattles around the countryside on his noisy motorbike and tries to find a connection. Hampered by amateur detective Gordon Cardew, aided and admired by lawyer Jim Ferraby and the beautiful Elfa Leigh, Sooper finds the case further complicated by another murder.

The mysterious `Big Foot' anticipates Minter's every move and only by delving into the past does he solve the case and bring the villain to justice.

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) was a prolific British crime writer, journalist and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and countless articles in newspapers and journals. Over 160 films have been made of his novels, more than any other author. In the 1920s, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him. In life Edgar had been alternatively lionised and vilified, but in death he was accorded all the pomp and glory his ego could have craved. It was journalism and newspapers that had always meant the most to him in terms of his accomplishments; indeed, for all his faults Edgar was a generous man and he spent his money for the benefit of impoverished journalists and many other worthy charities. His coffin was draped with the Union Jack and floral wreaths, as it traversed London the flags on Fleet Street's newspapers flew at half-mast and the bell of St. Bride's tolled in mourning. Edgar would have loved every second of it.