Murders old and new taunt Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson when historians excavating the gardens of the seventeenth-century Earlsacre Hall in Devon unearth the body of a woman--apparently buried alive three centuries earlier. However, Peterson has little time to indulge his hobby of archaeology when a petty thief robbing a local trailer park makes the grim discovery of a man stabbed to death. Oddly, the victim had a newspaper clipping of the Earlsacre project.

When a local attorney, anxious to speak to Peterson about the dig, is silenced with a cricket mallet, the divergent clues soon lead to a trail of stolen identities, blackmail and a stunning connection to the secrets of Earlsacre itself. But the dramatic revelations may come too late for Peterson to save a beloved member of his own force, about to become the latest victim of a deadly mystery and ingenious killer.