Fin, an Irish journalist with little more than a rumpled linen suit to his name, wakes at dawn with a fierce hangover and an excruciating bruise on his thigh. As the first prayer call of the day sounds over Cairo, Fin stumbles into an exotic adventure that will take him to the very edge of his courage, his endurance and his sense of self. He seeks a story — a story about treasure — and to find it, he must first find his friend Farouk, the mercurial teller of tales, who alone knows what Fin needs to hear. Fuelled by whisky and a thousand glasses of tea Fin pursues his quest under the shadow of the Great Pyramid, through crowded kebab shops and into the great emptiness of the desert itself.