It is the summer of 2001 and in Cairo's crowded streets the heat is rising... The unsolved murders of young homeless boys are fanning the embers of religious hatred. As tensions mount, Makana - who fled his home in Sudan a decade ago - has a premonition that history may be about to repeat itself. Hired to investigate threats that have been made to a hapless travel agent Makana finds himself drawn to Meera, a woman who knows what it is like to lose everything and who needs his help. But Makana's troubled past is trying to lay claim to him once again, this time in the form of a dubious businessman who possesses a powerful secret.
When Makana witnesses a brutal killing he attracts the attention of both the state security services and a dangerous gangster family. His search for answers takes him from the labyrinths of Cairo to the ancient city of Luxor and an abandoned monastery in the desert, into a web of intrigue and violence.