But the photograph art historian Vicky Bliss has just received gives rise to a thousand questions instead. A quick glance at the blood-stained envelope is all the proof she needs that something is horribly wrong.

The picture itself is familiar: a woman adorned in the gold of Troy. Yet this isn't the famous photograph of Frau Schliemann -- no, this picture is contemporary. The gold, as Vicky and her fellow academics know, disappeared at the end of World War II.

Now this circle of experts is gathered for a festive Bavarian Christmas. All of them -- including the mysterious John Smythe and a very determined killer...