Art detective Rupert von Schleewitz is in the picture gallery of Sanssouci palace with an old friend from school when the latter suddenly pulls out a knife and starts slashing a painting by Caravaggio. What’s behind this act of insanity?
The damaged masterpiece – “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” – is stolen while en route to a specialized institute for restauration. Was the attack just a means to an end for an art heist? The attacker’s lips are firmly sealed, but in the meantime von Schleewitz and his colleagues Klara Ivanovic and Max Müller manage to make contact with the thieves, who are demanding a substantial ransom to return the painting.
A game of cat-and-mouse around the artnapping ensues, but the key to solving the case seems to lie in Rupert von Schleewitz’s youth, which he spent at boarding school, together with the perpetrator. Didn’t their infamous art teacher at the time have a thing for Caravaggio? And didn’t said teacher later die under questionable circumstances? As Rupert gets sucked deeper and deeper into the vortex of repressed memories, the attempt to rescue the painting puts Klara in much greater danger than she ever could have imagined …
