150 years ago, in the unreconstructed south, a group of powerful families form an organization for the protection of the old plantation way of life. In a climactic moment of terror, they murder a man who shouldn't exist, a man whose very life could change history. Then the group vanishes into time. 150 years later, young idealist Will Benning discovers his own family's involvement with this group. Horrified, Benning flees his Southern home and heads for a friend in Boston. Hounded and desperate, he sells a box of odd and seemingly unrelated possessions, including two valuable Jefferson Bibles and a glass bottle filled with a strange dirt-like substance to rare book dealer, and ex-con, Quincy Adams Caine. That night, Benning is murdered, and Caine's shop is burglarized. The bottle vanishes. Left with an odd series of clues, Caine finds that the only way to avoid becoming the prime suspect is to solve the crimes himself. Working parallel to Boston Police Captain Jason Morgan, Caine travels to Georgia, but he's not alone. A shady private detective, Benning's own family, and history itself stand between Caine and the mysteries of Jefferson's Ashes.