Gentleman swindler Lyman Moreau is accustomed to changing his identity to suit his schemes. A new opportunity arrives when a collection of eleven mummies and several papyri covered in indecipherable hieroglyphs are due to arrive in New York’s South Street Seaport direct from the Valley of the Kings. Enlisting the help of a crooked customs agent and a black market antiquities dealer, he assumes the identity of Michael Chandler, nephew of deceased Egyptologist Antonio Lebolo, and lays claim to the shipment.

The showman’s plan to amass his fortune displaying the stolen artifacts across the country becomes more complicated when one of his accomplices dies a suspicious death, causing Lyman and the man’s beautiful widow to make a hasty escape from the city. Through four states, along the Erie Canal, and eventually to the doorstep of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, Lyman exhibits his dusty companions before a curious public. Rarely more than a few breaths ahead of his enemies, Lyman struggles to keep his prize from slipping away as he tangles with grief, love, betrayal, and a growing sense of his own mortality.

Bill Marshall is a senior US Navy fighter pilot, who will not make admiral. During his career, he spoke his mind too often to the wrong superior officers. His wife, Kate, has subordinated her ambitions for Bill and for their children, but she has an opportunity for a great job. Bill decides to resign and support his wife, however, the US Navy has one more job they need from Bill. He receives orders to NATO military headquarters in Belgium. Kate feels betrayed by her husband and struggles to swallow her anger to preserve their marriage for the sake of her children. As Kate and Bill work to resolve their earthly problems, their new castle home places them on a spiritual battlefield where a two-hundred-year-old struggle between innocence and evil rushes toward a conclusion.