It is the first in the Yashim the Detective series, followed by The Snake Stone, The Bellini Card, An Evil Eye and The Baklava Club.

The series features Yashim, an eunuch detective, who is resourceful and learned in both the Ottoman culture and that of the West, enjoys the trust of the Sultan and high officials, and prefers to live in a rather bohemian lodging outside the palace complex.

The novel deals with the fictional aftermath of the Auspicious Event, the disbanding (and mass killing) of the Janissaries, once elite troops of the Ottoman Empire.

Ten years later, the newly Westernized and modernized Ottoman Army which replaced the Janissaries are to perform a military exercise.

He discovers that the cases are related, and that they not only involve a plot for revenge by surviving Janissaries hidden somewhere but also the power struggle between the palace eunuchs and the military's extreme pursuit of democratization.