Norman Openheim is an American veteran of the D Day Landings, on a sentimental journey with his old unit to their West Country base. His is the last body archaeologist Neil Watson expects to find in the ruins of an old chantry chapel.

Neil naturally turns to his old friend from student days, Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, for help. Ironically both men are looking at an invading force - Wesley the World War II Yanks and Neil a group of shipwrecked Spaniards reputed to have met a sticky end at the hands of outraged locals as they limped from the wreckage of the great Armada in 1588.

As Wesley investigates Openheim's death, he is soon caught up in old accusations, resentments and romances from fifty years before. Then the wife of another American veteran disappears.

Wesley's case grows more perplexing, while Neil uncovers a tragic story from the distant past. Over four hundred years apart two strangers in a strange land have died violently - could the same motives of hatred, jealousy and revenge be at work? Wes is running out of time to find out...