How many hundreds or thousands of years ago was the man killed? Was his a ritual death, some kind of human sacrifice? These academic questions are intriguing, but of much more urgent interest is the second body found nearby -- of a man wearing a wristwatch, hardly an Iron Age accessory. But his corpse does show strange similarities to that of his ancient counterpart. Both bodies bear signs of "triple death," a primitive practice in which a victim was ritually slain three ways, perhaps to appease some pagan trinity. Nora and archaeologist Cormac Maguire, embroiled in a tumultuous love affair, must team up again professionally, and are soon enmeshed in the web of tangled desires and terrible secrets that surround this untimely death. When the triple deaths continue, Nora and Cormac know they are in the middle of a deadly game.