November 1973. Professor Periklis Harvatis, working alone and late into the night on an important archaeological dig, unearths a magnificent golden vase upon which the enigmatic images of a long-lost second Odyssey are engraved, showing the mystery of Ulysses' final voyage. But in the bleak chamber where he finds it he sees something so frightening that less than seven hours later, a broken man, he is dead...but not before he has ensured the safety of the vase.
Ten years on, and a series of violently gruesome deaths connected to the rape and murder during the student protests in Athens of a beautiful Greek woman, on the same night as Professor Harvatis's discovery, is perplexing the authorities. Each atrocity is accompanied by a dire quotation from the ancient sources, exposing an ingeniously cruel mind.

Who is behind these murders? How are these two events connected? And what is the significance of the age-old prophecy of the Odyssey?