It is random fate which brings Lionel Robertson-patriarch,collector and old rogue-to Crete.The assassin's bullet in Sarajevo in 1914,a hoard of engraved Minoan gemstones,an arid marriage,all lead to his obsession with Europe's earliest civilisation and the excavation of Ariadne's Summer Palace. But for subsequent generations of the Robertson line,a dark shadow emanates from the ancient site,and a series of mysteries which engulf the family.