| Summary Note |
Oman, 1958. The ancient city of Muscat is a land lost in time hard, secretive, beautiful. The few European residents are well known to one another: dinners, dances and drinks parties continue behind compound doors despite the fact that rebels have risen up against the Sultan. As his troops fight back, the roar of British fighter planes coming to the Sultan's aid echoes over the desert. Freya Seabrook has come to Muscat with her archaeologist fiance, Jasper Cole, keen to explore the vast fort of Jabrin, said to conceal great wonders. But Freya has another reason to be excited: the chance to meet her childhood heroine, pioneering adventurer Maude Villette Bouvier. Freya introduces herself to the elderly Maude, now living in a large crumbling house with the Sultan's particular blessing, and meets her young friend Charlie, an officer in the fledgling SAS, newly arrived in Oman. Maude, it seems, may be the key to persuading the Sultan to let Freya and Jasper excavate Jabrin. But that help will come at a price, because Maude also has things that she wants. In one of the Sultan's prisons languishes a man named Salih. Maude presses Freya to visit him and caught up in the romance of Maude's past adventures and the thrill of her own; only too late does Freya start to question her actions and Maude's motives. As Freya becomes a pawn in a treacherous struggle to settle old scores she must try to work out where her heart lies and whether she can rescue the situation before the terrible consequences are unleashed. |
