One night in 1980, through a series of improbable events, a fine, old, Italian violin came into the lives of Tom and Cheri Lyon Kelley. Naturally, they were curious to learn its story: Where was it made? When? By whom? And how did it make its way from the Old World to the New?

Their quest for answers led them to people and places they never could have anticipated, from some of the loveliest villas in Italy to the sordid underworld of violin fakes, frauds, and thefts.