The book opens in the court of the Persian Shah sometime in the 19th Century, who in a fit of ennui decides to pay a visit to Vienna. The first several chapters of the book are something of a comedy in which the Shah sees a woman at the ball thrown in his honor and decides he'd like to spend the night with her. She's a married member of the nobility, so this certainly can't be allowed, however a Captain in the army who has been attached to the Shah and his retinue knows of a prostitute whom he believes resembles the desired woman enough that they can trick the Shah. The plan goes off and the Shah goes home, but the book stays with the characters in Vienna, whose lives take turn after unexpected turn. There was a point maybe three quarters of the way in when – taking it all in – I believed I saw the reference to The Thousand and One Nights. The story kept shifting, the central characters were rotating, the book had drifted so far from the Shah's first visit, but it was the event that changed the course of all the character's lives. The book wraps up nearly twenty years later when the Shah makes a return, but everything is different after all that time.
