Dr Mary MacDougall, red-haired NASA meteorite specialist, witnesses a terrifying supernatural event at the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio. Meanwhile, close to the prehistoric Rollright Stones near Oxford, Holly Fraser, another redhead, experiences a vivid flashback to a girl being sacrificed 60,000 years ago to a sacred stone. Both events are traced to two recently discovered meteorites from Mars. While one meteorite provokes sinister phenomena and a macabre death, the other leads Mary to have strange visions linking an ancient tribe of redheads to the Stone of Scone, used for centuries in the coronation of British kings and queens. But is this Stone really a fake? Together with her colleague, Dan Gallagher, and Charles Gresham, professor of archaeology, Mary is determined to track down the real Stone of Scone, exploring mystical sites in Ireland and Scotland, and is drawn into a primaeval religion and an age-old feud that could decide the future of the human race.