At the tender age of twenty-one, Pico’s world is one of linguistic puzzles and academic pursuits. She is thrilled to get a summer job, unaware that her employer is a suspect in a police murder investigation and on the run from the Mafia.

Pico decides to use her linguistic prowess to decode the clues – with fateful consequences. She uncovers a labyrinthine plot that stretches back decades to the theft of a priceless Caravaggio from a church in Sicily.

As she fights to uncover the truth and witnesses the lengths one will go to protect the secrets of the past, Pico confronts the moral quandaries that emerge when the pursuit of art eclipses the bounds of right and wrong.