When the remains of a young child are found on a section of bleak Lancashire coastline, Smith is forced to think back to a pilgrimage he took with his parents, disabled brother Hanny, and figures from their church to The Loney in 1976.
The Loney starts very briefly in the present, as Smith makes an introduction to the reader that makes it clear something is not quite right. And then we're hurtled back in time to the 1970s, where we meet a younger Smith, his brother Hanny and their extremely religious mother. It is Mummer, as Smith calls her, who seems to instigate the events of the novel, by organising a pilgrimage to The Loney, accompanied by Father Bernard, the new priest at the local church. Also accompanying them are a couple who were related to the previous priest, who died in mysterious circumstances after something happened on a previous pilgrimage to The Loney, and the church's young assistant and her boyfriend.
