It's the summer of 1992 and a painting by the great seventeenth century Italian artist, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, is discovered in the basement of a church in Messina, Italy. Is it an original painting that has been lost over the centuries or is it a fake? The art dealer, Valeriano Cerasi, desperately needs to have it affirmed as original, the artist, Edward Donant, knows it is a fake. The night of the opening of the exhibition of the painting in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, both Edward and Valeriano are involved in a car bombing. A sinister Russian, a mime, an art forger and two American ladies, Anne Langlais and Maya Kelly are all in Florence when the car explodes. A week later the painting is stolen and the Italian police are determined to find the thieves. When a stolen Piranesi drawing is found in Maya's pocketbook, she and Anne find themselves deeply embroiled in what soon turns into a violent series of events involving desire and revenge, art and fraud.