A valuable work of art - a religious icon removed from the Winter Palace in Leningrad before the German siege of 1941 - is presented to Churchill by Stalin during the 1945 Yalta Conference. Known only to Churchill and his military aide, a deadly secret is later received and hidden beneath the icon's protective cover only to disappear with the icon after the war. Forward to 2007: Newly discovered information forces Matt Berkeley's involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency and a previously unknown British antiquities society that leads him on a search for what is now regarded as The Churchill Icon. From London to Chartwell, Churchill's home in the south of England, to Paris, where death follows his every move, and finally to a small village in the British Channel Islands and a man known as The Redeemer, Berkeley becomes involved in a series of events that bring him "...nothing but pain and an opportunity to die twenty years too soon."