Twenty-three-year old student Edgar von Rabov is a regular customer at Berlin’s Eldorado bar, but this evening is different. One chilly night in February 1926 a strikingly attractive Anglo-Indian woman enters the sleazy bar. Edgar is captivated by her, and her lingering glances betray an interest in him too. As she gets up to leave, she slips him a note: Meet me here in two days’ time. I’ll be expecting you. Soon Edgar, son of an aristocratic family and heir to his father’s company, has fallen under the exotic young woman’s spell. He sets off on a journey that will uncover the secrets of the past and take him across the ocean to India.

A magnificent family saga about the power of seduction, deception, conspiracy, religion, politics and self-knowledge. Set amid the political and philosophical turmoil of the Weimar Republic, this elegant and gripping story takes the reader on a voyage of discovery from Berlin and London to colonial Madras.