An uncensored and unflinching tale of power, corruption and love, set against the roiling aftermath of the Islamic Revolution - the first in an unforgettable trilogy about everyday life in contemporary Tehran.

Fattah is middle-aged and unmarried. A former hospital janitor who became rich working as a torturer in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, he now moonlights as an uncertified backstreet doctor specializing in 'honor surgery' for unmarried young women. Fattah has nothing but contempt for these women: until the beautiful Shahrzad lands on his operating table, and soon he is dangerously infatuated.

Undeterred that she is promised to - and in love with- another man, the younger and less affluent Mostafa, Fattah sets out to win Shahrzad by any means. Robbed of his bride, the jilted and furious Mostafa launches a desperate plan to move her beyond his rival's reach.

In Amir Cheheltan's critically acclaimed and searing novel - his first to be translated into English - power and corruption in post-revolutionary Iran are exposed through the actions of two men who work to exploit the chaos and confusion for their own benefit. The result is a provocative tale of a divided society where religious devotion and cruelty often go hand in hand.