A dead man hangs from the portal of St Paul s Chapel in Damascus . He was a Muslim officer and he was murdered. But when Detective Barudi set s out to interrogate the man s mysterious widow, the Secret Service takes the case away from him. Barudi continues to investigate clandestinely and discovers the murderer s motive : it is a blood feud between the Mushtak and Shahin clans , reaching back to the beginnings of the 20th century. And, linked to it , a love story that can have no happy ending, for reconciliation has no place in old tribal structures . Rafik Schami s dazzling novel spans a century of Syrian history in which politics and religions continue to torment an entire people . He chart s the escalating cycle of hatred and violence and the acute danger to those unwilling to subscribe to the laws of kinship.