Archaeologist Emma Fielding unearths evidence of a 17th-century coastal Maine settlement that predates Jamestown, but the dead body that accompanies it embroils Emma and her students in a different kind of investigation.

Emma is hired to consult on the acquisition of a castle-like estate that local legends claim carries a curse.

While hosting a gathering of the Association for the Study of American Archaeology, Emma Fielding is thrust into the middle of a murder mystery when the president of her organization is poisoned on the eve of announcing her successor.