As usual, Gabriel Allon is doing what he likes best, restoring a masterpiece, this time in Vatican City, when there he is asked to investigate a death by his friend, the pope's private secretary.
His investigation leads him to the world of the theft of priceless and irreplacable art and artifacts. Telling what he discovers could destroy people he likes as well as the Catholic Church.
Locations include not only the Vatican but also Switzerland, Vienna, and Jerusalem. Not only art thieves but terrorists. Along the way he has to decide what to do about evil men who help him in his inquiry.
When you think the story is over, another one comes along. The page-turning, keep-you-up-all-night story ends with a visit to Jerusalem by the Pope during Easter. After visiting a Palestinian refugee camp, he states, "Those who would perpetuate human sufferning in; the service of politics must be condemned as strongly as those who would inflict in in the first place." During his visit, he raises the questions that too many people do not ask and that the media ignores, such as the loss of Christian populations in Moslem areas of Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Allon's responsibility to not only protect him but also stop a terrorist plot which, if successful, could bring on an Arab uprising of a magnitude never seen before.
The book left me with one question: When will the next one come out?