It was based on the 1973 cult horror film The Wicker Man, directed by Hardy and written by Shaffer.

At the time these hardback editions were printed, the newly restored version of the Wicker Man film was being shown in the US.

For example, the character of Lord Summerisle's gillie is restored, and the reader learns of Howie's interest in bird-watching.

The novelization reveals that Sergeant Neil Howie had originally attempted to become a priest, but that he was daunted by the prospect of preaching the minority faith of Episcopalianism in the staunchly Presbyterian Scottish Highlands.

In the novel, "the battle is more ambivalent, more unsettling – and, in the end, perhaps more in keeping with the treacherous moral landscape Shaffer initially envisioned.