Matthew Spear, a young Greek-American curator at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, meets the lovely Ana Kessler, a sometime art dealer
who has inherited an impressive collection from her mysterious
grandfather. Matthew soon discovers that the jewel of the old man's
cache is none other than the Holy Mother of Katarini -- a sacred
icon long thought destroyed in a fire. But while Matthew recognizes
the icon's value as a work of art -- and a star in his crown if he
can add it to the museum's collection -- he soon discovers that it
carries a far greater significance to numerous people, including
his owngrandfather and godfather.

What Matthew does not realize is that his own connection to the
icon will thrust himinto a byzantine web of death and deception, as
other parties -- including a representative of the Greek Orthodox
Church, a Russian "entrepreneur," a dying gangster, and a Nazi who
has escaped the wartime tribunals for nearly six decades -- pursue
it for their own means. All believe the icon to be a source of
fantastic and inexplicable power, and all were somehow connected to
the events that transpired in a small Greek village during World
War II. As he experiences the peculiar resonance of the icon, and
sees the hold it has on others, Matthew begins to understand that
the only way out of his entanglement is to discover what really
happened in that Greek village sixty years earlier. And he will
soon be forced into a harrowing situation where he must decide who
lives and who dies, and will have to reexamine virtually every
aspect of his life -- the loyalties within his family, his feelings
for Ana, and even the question of his own faith.

Is the icon chiefly a relic of historic and artistic significance?
Or is it something more still -- a vessel imbued with the spirit
and power of Christ himself? In a stunning debut that spans more
than half a century and two continents, THE ICON asks us to reach
into the very heart of all our questions about faith, power, and
love.