It's summer vacation, 1896, and Miles and his brother must spend it with rich, irritable Uncle Eustace, who wants to purchase art for his mansion. Little do the boys know that their summer will take them on a high-flying chase across Italy and Germany, searching for an answer to the mysterious disappearance of their uncle's servant and six woodcuts by the famous Renaissance artist Albecht Durer. Unwittingly they become entangled in an international ring of conspirators, and must save the world from a dark force masquerading as a benign secret society.