The political adviser to Australia's Minister of the Arts investigates the suspicious death of a disgruntled artist.

On a sultry summer night Murray Whelan is in the Botanic Gardens tasting Salina Fleet's apricot lips. Meanwhile a dead artist is being fished from the ornamental moat outside the art gallery. Political minder and brushed-off lover Murray Whelan goes looking for the big picture and learns that when you dabble with death there is nothing abstract about a loaded gun.

Two sisters head to Italy on a career saving mission to retrieve a lost painting. But the plan goes askew when they find the roguish painter instead of the painting, leading them on a wild adventure of self-discovery.

After her son's tragic death, Helena abducts her employee, Lucian, and travels with him and her husband to scatter her son's ashes in Macedonia. Meanwhile, Lucian's lover struggles to provide for their son and break free from her dictatorial father.