Makana, a former police inspector who fled from Sudan to Cairo, lives on a rickety Nile houseboat. When the notorious and powerful Saad Hanafi hires him to track down a missing person Makana is in no position to refuse him. Hanafi is the owner of Cairo's star-studded football team; his most valuable player has just vanished and Adil Romario's disappearance threatens to bring down not only Hanafi's private empire but the entire country. But why should the city's most powerful man hire its lowliest private detective? Makana's investigation leads him into the treacherous underbelly of his adopted country – where he encounters Muslim extremists, Russian gangsters and a desperate mother hunting for her missing daughter.