Stroll along the banks of the canals in beautiful Venice, Italy, and you’ll see the slacker—a young woman noodling on her guitar, pecking a bit at her laptop, and maybe getting a little reading in. But watch your step in this ancient town, because some of the other people you might run into—the ragged derelict, the drunken streetwalker, even that clean-cut gondolier—they’re all her, too! She’s Mariel Imari, of Italian and Japanese descent, whose skill at disguise comes from being part of a famous dynasty of detectives.
But Mariel hasn’t yet cracked the one case that would allow her to inherit her grandfather’s estate—Forget-me-not, the painting stolen from the mansion 22 years ago, which she needs to recover as a condition of his will. You see, Mariel is brilliant, but also a bit lazy and slovenly and bored…and about to be a bit embarrassed, too, when her sisters show up from Japan, under the impression that she's rich! Will Mariel ever catch the master thief standing between her and an aristocratic lifestyle?