"Who is the beautiful Leila Cyprian? Committed doctor, Islamist, political activist, she is wife to fellow medic Khaled Cyprian, daughter-in-law to university academic Sameh Cyprian, yet in essence she is entirely inscrutable." "At least that is how she appears when she is first encountered by retired academic Michael James on his year long sabbatical to the Egyptian city of Cairo. Michael is a specialist in international terrorism, but his Cairo sojourn is primarily about getting to know the history and culture of this remarkable city. In between teaching at the American University and researching a series of letters from the household of Karl Marx in the lead up to the abandonment of the 1872 International, he explores every inch of the city that he has already come to know and love. His relationship with the Cyprians, however, soon draws him into a web of political intrigue and fundamentalist politics that leads inevitably towards his own complicity in terror." --BOOK JACKET.