In a series of flashbacks, the omniscient narrator of the novel chronicles the businessman's life from his childhood days in İzmir to his present cosmopolitan existence and status as one of the richest men in the world.

It is in South America that he lays the foundation of his wealth, operating on both sides of the law and increasingly applying as yet unheard of business practices such as closing contracts to transport oil on tankers that have not been built yet.

In 1939, already a rich man, and—erroneously—known to business rivals and competitors as "The Turk," he moves his company headquarters to New York City, and during the Second World War his growing fleet services both the Allies and the Axis powers, resulting in even greater profit.

From a bourgeois background himself, he has always been in awe of old money and aristocracy and resentful of, and at the same time attracted by, the upper crust, so he starts courting the 16-year-old daughter of shipping tycoon Daniel Negri, Miranda, who is still attending prep school.

While Timoleon's business prospers in the wake of the Suez Crisis, making him one of the richest men in the world, his marriage soon disintegrates, and the children are left in the care of a nanny and a governess while the two spouses increasingly go their separate ways.

Miranda Timoleon, unprepared for life's harsh realities due to an over-protective Catholic upbringing, seeks solace in tranquillizers but eventually tries to combat her husband's continued womanising by having love affairs herself.

In 1964, at a point where the couple consider divorce and a legal battle over custody of the children is likely to break out, Miranda Timoleon, aged 35, dies of a drug overdose on the private island her husband has recently bought.

A carefully planned suicide, her death nevertheless stirs rumours, notably in the yellow press, that Marco Timoleon may have killed his wife, either intentionally or unintentionally, and the tycoon himself feels no need ever to disperse them.

Marco Timoleon's reputation and money meant that foreign dignitaries in curlers, half-shaved ambassadors with lather on their cheeks and honeymooners in bathrobes were asked to vacate their suites with the excuse that a mistake had been made in allocating their rooms.

Probably out of boredom, Sofia adds Forster to her long list of lovers, but their unexpected mutual attraction leads to a longer love affair conducted in what they believe is absolute secrecy.

While entertaining a married woman half his age in his earthly paradise for the weekend, Timoleon sees one of his old Piaggio seaplanes piloted by Daniel approaching the island in bad weather and actually becomes an eye-witness to his son's fatal accident when the plane is overturned during the landing procedure.