With his diverse background of art evaluation and Desert Storm duty, FBI Special Investigator Chris Clarke is ready for all comers. Only one fugitive haunts his thoughts: the notorious and ruthless assassin known only as "The Man in Black," whose trail of contract killings had never led law enforcement to anything but a figure lurking in the shadows. One morning, "The Man in Black" is seen by witnesses in Cremona, Italy, in the area where a young violinist was found dead with his throat cut. Clarke and his partner head off to Europe to tack down the assassin while attempting to decode the mystery that lies behind the motive. Meanwhile, veteran sneak-thief Gus Edward Happy has been hired to fly to Europe and steal the most valuable violin in existence - the famed violin coveted by the Jimi Hendrix of the nineteenth century, Niccolo Paganini - thought to be in league with the devil because his genius was unexplainable in earthly terms. Through a tangled web involving Illuminati, secret documents in the possession of Paganini at his death, a master violin forger and his deceptive daughter, thieves, and assassins, Clarke faces the challenge of his career as he and his partner move across Italy to the South of France where pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place with the Devil's Violin at center stage.