Seven weeks ago, a young American woman, Amanda Pym, faced down hijackers on board a flight to the Middle East and saved the lives of more than two hundred passengers. In a blaze of celebrity, she stepped off the plane in Damascus and was whisked away in a waiting car. Since then, NOTHING. The CIA believes she was kidnapped and murdered.

Whose plans has the apparently ordinary young woman interfered with? The machinations of the mukhabarat, Syria's dreaded police? The schemes of cutthroat terrorists? Or has she simply gone into hiding?

Masquerading as Amanda Pym's worried aunt, Mrs. Pollifax begins her determined search, slipping through Damascus' crooked streets and colorful, crowded souks, and trekking deep into the desert, hoping that rumor and whispers (which is all she has to go on) will lead her to the truth.