J. M. W. Turner, Britain's greatest and most revolutionary artist, has died. While reviewing the contents of Turner's vast artistic legacy for Britain's National Gallery, John Ruskin, Turner's greatest supporter, discovers a considerable body of previously unknown erotic sketches. Both shocked and outraged, Ruskin abruptly burns the materials he finds offensive. But through betrayal and theft, some of the erotica has escaped the flames... William James Stillman, a young American artist and diplomat, pursues a dangerous quest across Britain, Europe, and the Eastern United States to save the...