Istanbul, 1947. The Cold War has begun, but while spies plot and generals plan, Anglo-American expat Kiva Deeping drinks every night away in the nightclubs of Pera. Kiva has been seeking for years to forget a difficult childhood spent among religious cranks, communist revolutionaries, and an English fascist father who died in British custody in 1941--and a drink and a laugh seemed the best antidote to infuriating memories. But much as he wishes to hide from his past, when an Marxist journalist is murdered, the CIA and MI6 suspect that fascist sympathizers may be at work in Istanbul and ask Kiva to help them identify possible suspects among his father's old associates. And when a series of bizarre murders occurs, in which symbols of eternity are scrawled next to the bodies of the victims, the brilliant (and Vienna-trained) Chief Inspector Yildirim of the Istanbul CID recruits Kiva to help him understand the twisted mind of the killer. Tangled political intrigues complicate the investigation of the murders, however, and the CIA and MI6 drag Kiva right back into the world he wanted more than anything else to leave behind.
