An internal matter

Sometimes the only way to get back a stolen masterpiece is to steal it again…

Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon retired a few years ago from his position as Director-General of the Israeli secret service and has settled quietly in Venice with his wife and children. But his longed-for peace is shattered, and he must solve a near-perfect crime in a new story of murder, greed, and corruption.

Gabriel Allon has been commissioned to restore one of the most important paintings in Venice and hopes that this time, nothing will distract him from his work. However, when one day he discovers the body of a mysterious woman floating in the waters of the Venetian Lagoon, he finds himself in a desperate race to find a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting, a portrait of a beautiful young girl, had been gathering dust in the storeroom of the Vatican Museums for more than a century, with no one knowing what treasure was hidden there. Leonardo's work was concealed beneath a later, worthless overpainting by an unknown artist. And because no one knows about this hidden masterpiece, no one notices when it disappears one night under suspicious circumstances. No one, that is, except the ruthless mafiosi and criminals behind the theft, and the mysterious woman Gabriel found in a watery grave in Venice. A woman with no name. A woman with no face.