Mark Lewis, a former surgeon, has found solace in running a small art gallery. When Jan, a local woman, brings him a painting for valuing, it looks uncannily like a painting by the enigmatic artist James Devlin. Yet Jan claims it was done by a seventeen-year-old boy called Charlie. As Mark searches for the painting's true provenance, he is joined by the attractive and clever Linda de Vries. But the pair will learn that James Devlin is a man whose past is as blank as an empty canvas, and he is determined to keep it that way.