Italy 1944. In a small, barren town in Calabria, the local partisans condemn a man to death. Allied deserter, traitor, collaborator, Giacomo Nerone deserved to die . or did he? Years after the war, there are those who remember Nerone as a saint - a wounded fugitive who appeared from nowhere to lead them through the harsh winter of the German occupation into spring. Saint or sinner? It is for the Church to pronounce - and Blaise Meredith, the cool, sceptical emissary from the Vatican, known to all as the Devil's Advocate.