Lazzaro has a talent for catching criminals, a talent that has gained him as much trouble as it has acclaim in the years since he arrived at the royal palace to attend his mother, infamous concubine to the King. Increasingly frustrated that the man who murdered his mother continues to elude him, Lazzaro takes the advice of his half-brother and goes to obtain information from the notorious Crown Jewel—the most successful courtesan in the city. But the man he encounters is nothing like what he expected, and Lazzaro finds himself coveting a Jewel that vows never to belong to just one man.