Sam Appleyard at the age of thirty is a man whom the vicissitudes of life have left unscathed. He has raffish friends and is popular but his role is that of approving spectator. Completely out of character he steals a stone statuette of a 14th century gondolier and christens it Basil Chutney. Immediately, he and his life seem to change - for the better at first. He dumps the girl he was contemplating marrying, sells his Volvo and buys a Bristol Bullet and heads for the south of France. He meets a girl who persuades him that he should head for Venice where Carnevale is awaiting his arrival. While he has the statuette in his possession he is attended by good fortune. The moment he loses it his luck changes. He is stabbed, thrown into a Venice canal and, when he recovers, is charged with drug offences. He is cleared eventually and goes back to the UK to discover that his aunt has died and his income with her. He ends up sleeping rough until friends from both the UK and Italy appear as if by chance, all bearing good tidings and the return of Basil Chutney. Once more Sam embarks upon his journey south, a harder and wiser man than before and growing harder, callous even, to the dismay of his friends. He meets another girl older than himself, the widow of a French gendarme, who makes it plain there is no room in her life for Sam. He learns that the statuette is that of a gondolier in the service of Doge Falier who was executed. Among his executioners was Cardinal Farnese, the patron of the Capella family, among whose descendants, the Chappells, Chapelles, Capellas et al, Sam has been living. Throughout their history the families have been dogged by tragedy. The question for Sam is, can he survive without Basil or is he to bring tragedy to everyone with whom he comes into contact if they have some connection with the Capella family?

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