At the center of this erudite and unusual novella is the story the great painter Vermeer and his wife Catharina. Weaving together the biography of the artist and his wife into a contemporary mystery, noted author Michael Tobias effortlessly blends genres. The theft of a Vermeer painting from a Boston museum sends a reluctant detective on an odyssey across Europe, where he meets up with an eccentric art historian. What follows is a story that switches ingeniously between the 17th century world of Vermeer and the present day. Illustrated with photographs by Rocky Schenck, along with Vermeer's paintings, this lavishly designed book is delightfully unorthodox.