Waking up after an explosion in a museum, Theo Decker receives a ring and a rare painting from a dying old man, with instructions to take them out of the museum. Theo will toss them through different houses and families—from New York patrons to an old master craftsman, from a home in Las Vegas to a hotel room in Amsterdam—and the stolen painting will become both the curse that drags him down to the very bottom and the straw that helps him climb back into the light.