• A severed head is found on the Greek border near a wall planned to stop Middle Eastern immigrants crossing from Turkey.
• The novel is based on the true story of a ten mile wall built in 2012 to put an end to illegal immigration flooding into Greece from Turkey. Many dark stories surfaced around the construction of the wall and they have been woven into this political thriller and mystery novel.
• Verdan is a highly literary writer with a deep love for Greece, so the novel, while dark, is also poetic and paints an indelible portrait of Athens, with its mixed fragrances of eucalyptus, freshly baked bread and cigarette smoke.

 Intelligence Agent Evangelos must solve the case of the severed head but is also asked not to make waves. After all, EU funding and relations with Germany are at risk. But Evangelos wants to get to the truth: about the murder, about human trafficking and prostitution in Greece, and about the corruption surrounding the wall’s construction. 

This is a mystery novel and a political thriller with a crime, an investigation, even a car chase and some form of final justice, but more importantly it evokes the problems of the West incarnated in Greece: isolationism, fear of immigration, economic collapse and corruption.