In 1956, when a famous early Renaissance masterpiece, Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, disappears from an art museum, a very worldly private detective, Restin and a young, naive art historian, Mary, working for the museum join forces to locate the painting. The two form an uneasy partnership and pose as brother and sister.

The two follow the trail of an infamous Nazi art collector, who escaped Germany after WWII for the Latin American country of Guatemala where the man owns a coffee plantation. His daughter from NYC is visiting and taking Spanish classes in a school in Antigua, Guatemala. Restin and Mary enroll for classes to meet Gretchen and hopefully to gain access to the Nazi's mansion and his art collection.

The Spanish school sponsors biweekly field trips to many exotic places of interest in the country. An Indigenous student with secrets of his own joins the trio on the trips around Antigua, a colonial museum of a city, to the Mayan ruins of Tikal, to the Indian market in Chichicastenango, and to the wild Pacific coast of Iztapa. They form a bond out of necessity while they try to make sense of the racism and violence that permeates all aspects of the Guatemalan culture. Their brave adventure uncovers all Restin and Mary wish to hide about themselves.