On a sultry summer night in the Cotswolds, Nathaniel and Katherine Gye are guests at a Civil War fancy-dress party. The theme of the occasion is apt because Tripletree, the Jacobean manor house where the event is being held, is steeped in history and enjoys a colourful past. But at the end of a glittering evening tragedy strikes when the body of a woman is dragged from the lake.

As he tries to unravel the truth about the woman's death, Nathaniel Gye, paranormal investigator, finds himself drawn back to the 17th century and the time when the hill above Tripletree manor was the place where the gallows once stood...