When a major painting is kidnapped days before an important international exhibition opens in Rome, Flavia di Stefano, newly appointed head of the Italian Art Squad, has a feeling her life is suddenly going to get very complicated. Things start badly when Flavia is told to get the painting back at all costs without causing any embarrassment to the country and without paying the ransom to the thieves. She knows she will be blamed if something goes wrong, and finds herself pushed ever further into unorthodox tactics to save both the painting and her job. Encouraged by her art-dealing lover Jonathan Argyll and her old boss, Taddeo Bottando, she delves deeply into past cases to try and identify those responsible for the kidnapping before it is too late, and in the process discovers a secret, lying hidden for decades, which gives her the biggest shock of her career. The Immaculate Deception, the seventh in Iain Pears's delightful Jonathan Argyll series, is a fascinating, witty and ingeniously plotted novel.