Professor Luke Littlefield has been tasked with setting up a new anthropology department at Kings Grant College in Portland, Maine. As if that wasn't work enough, a murder has been committed in husband Bryan Sullivan's antique shop, and Luke becomes involved with the investigation. As a learning tool, Luke and his graduate students take on a hundred and forty year old cold case in Greenfield Harbor and use forensic research to examine the case. While in the middle of investigative research, a mysterious letter arrives that challenges everything Luke believes about his past.