Oxford, England. A Jesuit priest unearths a tattered poetic manuscript from the nineteenth century. Against universal scorn, he makes the outrageous claim that it contains a series of word puzzles pointing to the whereabouts of the Cuxham Chalice, a priceless relic of England's medieval anti-Semitic past. He suddenly disappears amidst a city in turmoil over a series of brutal slayings, and two concerned friends are determined to find him. Myles Dunn, pulled from a failed life in Colorado back to his old Oxford college, joins forces with librarian Eva Bashir to unlock the manuscript's secrets. Battling police resistance and their own personal demons, Myles and Eva must decode the cryptic verse before the killer strikes again.