Sebastiano Colonna, Dutch/Italian Vatican diplomat, is thrilled with his new covert mission. He'll be investigating a corrupt cardinal who heads the Church's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the department that authenticates saints and miracles. Finally, he'll get that chance to prove he's still got what it takes. And that they were wrong to park him in a backwater when the new pope brought in his own people.

But when Colonna discovers that his ex-partner Thomas may have witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary, he'll have to make a decision. Will he stay faithful to his duties? Risk his job and his standing in the Church to find out what really happened? Or will he decide to save the man he once loved and maybe could love again? 

And then there's Colonna's own complicated past and his sprawling Italian family, a headstrong girl and a mystifying little dog…