The ancient gardens of Earlsacre Hall are being excavated by a local team of historians in preparation for plans to recreate the gardens in their former glory. But the dig is called to a halt when two bodies are discovered under a stone plinth. More than 300 years old and buried on top of one another, there is every indication that one of the corpses had been buried alive. Despite the intriguing circumstances, DS Wesley Peterson has little time to indulge in his hobby for archaeology: a man has been found brutally stabbed to death in a trailer at a popular vacation site. There are no clues to the dead man’s identity except for a newspaper cutting about the restoration of Earlsacre. Soon after, the body of local solicitor Brian Willerby is found during a game of village cricket. The postmortem reveals that his death was caused by being struck by a hard ball several times with some force. Now Wesley must decipher the connection between Earlsacre and the murders before any more victims arise.