This historical novel, based on actual events, alternates between two main narrative threads. The first thread centers on an incident that occurred in the city of Salonika in 1876. Stefana secretly converts to Islam and elopes, with the help of some local Moslems, to join her wealthy older lover in Salonika. When she arrive at the train station in Salonika, she is unwittingly caught up in the escalating tensions between the city's Moslem and Christian communities. Attacked by a Greek mob, she is whisked away, first to the American Consulate and then to the home of a Greek businessman. Meanwhile, the Moslem community becomes enraged at what they perceive to be the abduction of a Moslem girl. The mob becomes increasingly inflamed and, unaware that Stefana has already been released, attacks and kills the German and French Consuls who had come to the mosque to attempt to ease tensions. In the second narrative thread, which begins in Istanbul in 1920, we are introduced to Tahsin Bey, who has served as Governor of several provinces and is now a Member of Parliament. He witnesses the British Occupation forces seize and suspend parliament, and that night British soldiers enter his home and arrest him in his pajamas. He is charged as a war criminal for his role in the forced migration of Armenians during his tenure as Governor of Erzurum province. He is brought to a prison camp in Malta, from which two years later he and a group of fellow prisoners manage to escape.