This is Iraq in the turbulent 1920s--a cauldron of intrigue, violence and death in a new country created from disparate parts of the old Ottoman Empire after WWI. The British are attempting to establish a puppet monarchy and protect the vital flow of oil using obsolete bombers. Lawless, rebellious Arab tribes roam the vast deserts, preying on anything that moves on the ground or in the air.

Allan Chadwick is a slightly gauche, newly qualified RAF pilot posted to a bomber squadron near Baghdad. He is soon initiated into the brutality of war and the pleasures of romantic liaisons. Although they rarely meet, he has an accidental but profound influence on the life of Dr. Kurt Scharf, a respectable professor of archaeology. Scharf is a reluctant partner of German military intelligence, which funds his dig at Ur as a front for anti-British espionage.

Their stories play out against the historical background of Middle Eastern conflict, the rise of fascism in Europe and the slow build-up to another world war.