Bestselling author Anna Kovac has just bought the house of her dreams in New York. But the horror of September 11th, and the need for peace to finish her latest novel, leads her to crave a change of scene and so she arranges a four-month house-swap with the mysterious Don Sutherland, an ex-Yalie who is prepared to loan her his villa in Tuscany while he lives in her apartment. Delighted by her good fortune, Anna arrives in Tuscany with two friends. After a blissful few weeks she calls home and her friend Larry Atwood assures her that, although no one has seen the mysterious Mr Sutherland, the house seems fine. But then Anna tries to access her bank account and her details have been wiped. All her savings have disappeared. She calls her house and discovers it has been put up for sale. Then she hears that Larry has fallen from the scaffolding outside her building and been killed. Anna returns to New York to discover that someone has ruthlessly erased all evidence of her life there. Someone has taken her identity.