From the bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building comes a novel bursting at the seams with Egyptian life. Cairo at the very end of Ottoman rule. Behind the doors of the Automobile Club of Egypt, Egyptian staff attend to the every need of Cairo's European elite - the way they always have done, it seems.

But soon the social upheaval out on the street will break its way through the club's gilded doors, and its inhabitants above and below stairs must all confront their choices: to live safely without dignity, or to fight for their rights and risk everything.