In London, a young woman vanishes...She is the daughter of the American Ambassador - and goddaughter of the President of the United States - and the kidnappers' demands are at once horrifically clear and clearly impossible to meet. The President turns to Gabriel Allon, spy turned art-restorer, a man whose abilities he has depended on before...Meanwhile, Allon had been in Amsterdam, hunting down those responsible for the brutal murder of a leading terrorism analyst. The dead man had gotten too close to uncovering the plans of a major terrorist operation - a new threat which no-one could have predicted. Allon soon finds himself in a desperate search for the missing woman, and those responsible - but the truth, when he finds it, is not what he expects. In fact, it is one that will shake him, and many others, to the core.