When a pianist arrives one early morning at a Manhattan recording studio, ready to record J.S. Bach's "The Art of the Fugue", he finds no one there except an old homeless black man sitting by the window. Thus starts a magical odyssey in pursuit of a lost Bach manuscript, taking him back two and a half centuries to Bach's apartment in Leipzig, to a slaver ship off the Guinea Coast of west Africa, and to Patton's 3rd Army during WWII. Along the way he'll meet a colorful cast of characters, a Victorian grave robber, a Nazi manuscript hunter, an ex-Baader-Meinhof terrorist, and the greatest forger of manuscripts in the history of music. The Art of Fugue poses the question what is genuine and what is fake? By interlacing life-stories as in a musical fugue, it weaves together a panoramic tapestry across time and space, a tale of obsession and revenge, heartbreak and deceit, and ultimately love and redemption. Albert Einstein once said, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." Sometimes though, not being sure what is real can lead to the most startling discovery.