In search of a new start following her recent bereavement, widow Clare Hills is pleased when her university friend Dr David Barbrook asks for her help sifting through the effects of recently deceased archaeologist Gerald Hart. When Clare stumbles across the unpublished journals detailing Gerald's most glittering dig, hidden from view for decades and supposedly destroyed in an arson attack, the discovery of the Hungerbourne Barrows archive is every archaeologist's dream. Determined to document Gerald's career-defining find for the public, Clare and David inspect the meticulously kept records of the excavation, but the dead rarely leave matters tidy, and soon the pair unearth unpleasant truths that would have been better left buried, putting them at the center of a murder inquiry.