The picture contained a frightful beauty, one which burned so brightly that, once witnessed, could never be unseen… No one could take their eyes off the painting. Even the presence of two corpses, one clearly murdered, the other dead in strange and suspicious circumstances, did nothing to distract their attention from the canvas at that moment…

In a hidden studio in an ancient area of Rome where the Vatican liked to keep an eye on the city’s prostitutes, an art expert from the Louvre is found dead in front of one of the most beautiful paintings that Nic Costa has ever seen – an unknown Caravaggio masterpiece.

But before long tragedy will strike far closer to home. The main suspect’s identity is known, but he remains untouchable – protected in his grand palazzo by a fleet of lawyers and a sinister cult known as the Ekstasists.

If Costa and his team can crack the reasons for the cult’s existence, he may well stand a chance of nailing the murderer. But the mystery will take him right back to Caravaggio himself and the reasons the artist had to flee Rome and a sentence of death four centuries before….

Available in the UK from Pan Macmillan now and in the US from Bantam Dell in July 2008, where the book has received a coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly.