A painter is found dead at sea off the coast of a remote Greek island. For the enigmatic detective Hermes Diaktoros, the plot can only thicken: the painter's work, an icon of the Virgin long famed for its miraculous powers, has just been uncovered as a fake. But has the painter died of natural causes or by a wrathful hand. What secret is a dishonest gypsy keeping? And what haunts the ancient catacombs beneath the bishop's house?