From the international bestselling author of Fatherland and Munich, a gripping mystery and a fascinating cautionary tale.

'All civilizations consider themselves invulnerable; history warns us that none is.'

1468. A young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arrives in a remote English village to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with ancient artefacts—coins, fragments of glass, human bones—which the old parson used to collect. Did his obsession with the past lead to his death?

As Fairfax is drawn more deeply into the isolated community, everything he believes—about himself, his faith and the history of his world—is tested to destruction.