Arabesk trilogy

[1][2] Starting with the 2001 novel Pashazade and continuing with Effendi (2002) and Felaheen (2003), the point of divergence occurs in 1915 by US President Woodrow Wilson brokering an earlier peace so that World War I never expanded outside the Balkans.

Between caring for his niece, Hani, and attempting to understand Zara, the girl he was to marry, Raf ends up suspected of his Aunt Nafisa's murder, running from the police as he tries desperately to work out who really killed her.

The main story is intercut with out-of-order flashbacks to Raf's past as a schoolboy in Swiss and Scottish boarding schools and as 'ZeeZee', a low-ranking agent of Hu San, an influential Triad boss in Seattle.

Meanwhile, as agents from Berlin, Washington, DC, and Paris battle diplomatically for influence over North Africa's most influential port, its nominal ruler, the young Khedive, is sent on holiday by the Governor General Koenig Pasha, whose cryptic notes Raf is left struggling to understand.

This novel includes a second narrative dealing with the young Hamzah's actions as a prepubescent soldier surviving famine and desert to carry out his lethal mission for the mysterious Abad.