It is late summer, late century, Oxford. Donovan O'Dwyer is dead, but for his fellow expatriate Mike Newall their shared past is still hauntingly alive.
Two Oxford dons, Newall and Winterstoke, attend their colleague's funeral. Afterwards Newall reveals the secret that O'Dwyer took to the grave.
During the Battle of Crete in World War II a Maori soldier died in circumstances that led to his family placing a curse on O'Dwyer. How did the soldier die? Why was O'Dwyer responsible? Gradually Newall tells all. But as he moves in space and time - from his childhood in New Zealand to Crete, from Oxford to Croatia, reflecting on war time and peace time, and the generations who have lived through both - it becomes clear that the story is not just O'Dwyer's, but Newall's as well.
