Red Shift weaves together three stories. Nearly all the events occur in a single area: the part of Cheshire comprising Crewe, Rudheath, the village of Barthomley, and the hill of Mow Cop.

However, the stories are set in three different periods—during the days of the Roman legions in Britain, at the time of the English Civil War, and in the present. The stories are not told in the customary chronological sequence, as if an earlier event influenced a later event, or as if one story is present and the other two are historical. Instead, they seem to be simultaneous, as if events and people in the present can have as much impact on the past as the past can have on the present. Each narrative sheds light upon the other two.

The book begins with the modern story of Tom and Jan, a pair of "star-crossed...