Timid,unobtrusive and fearful of foreign destinations'American businessman Micky Malone arrives in Peshawar, the teeming ultra-conservative half-town-half-city on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. The Khyber Hotel is comfortable enough,but Malone cannot shake off his growing fear that something nasty is about to happen to him. When it does,a mysterious message smeared in blood on the hotel's ice machine is the only clue that eager young detective Iqbal has to go by,when he is dispatched from the capital to find out who killed the American.

Soon,the modern,Western-educated Iqbal is caught hopelessly in a bewildering maze of tribal rivalries,prostitution rings,turbulent mixed marriages, and warring European charity organizations. With his boss hounding him for results and his wife's militantly feminist best friend mocking his efforts,Iqbal thinks things cannot get worse,till three more men are killed: a Pakistani banker.a flamboyant Indian movie star and an anti-American Islamic fundamentalist publisher.....