"Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a wealthy Park Avenue family. He is bewildered by his strange new home and, tormented by his longing for his mother, clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that has come into his possession.

As an adult, Theo moves easily between the antique store where he works, the drawing rooms of the rich, and the underworld of art. He is alienated, unmoored, and in love--and drawn inexorably by the power of that painting into a narrowing, dangerous circle."