After many years abroad, the narrator, Brahim, with his much beloved Scottish wife and two very peppy boys, returns to his home village, El Jadida, in Morocco. Having invented an alter-ego, Inspector Ali, now becoming an incubus, he finds himself "adrift" if "world famous" as the author of the too scrutible, but very Sherlockian sleuth, with great solutions to crimes to his credit. Then arrive Jock and Susan, his wife's parents from Scotland, loaded down with golf clubs and nervous expectations of a mysterious land. Islam, bankers, a statuesque cook-maid, bureaucrats, students, bakers, butchers, aging Mercedes taxi drivers, nostalgia, writers bloc, all invade and saturate this volume, crosscutting into the narrative.