Queen Scheherazade is kidnapped from Baghdad and must tell a story to save her own life, having told stories for many years to save the lives of other women. "Ninth-century Baghdad, legendary crossroads of the East. It is nearly twenty years since Scheherazade spun her tales for a thousand and one nights, the tales that saved her life and immortalised the city that she had never seen - until now. But almost immediately she is kidnapped by a party of hashish-chewing assassins from under the Caliph of Baghdad's nose. An ancient prophecy leads the Caliph to despatch an unlikely crew of sailors on a rescue mission. As they venture deeper into the unforgiving desert, losing camels, supplies, and all sense of dicrection, Scheherazade must face her abductors alone. And once again begins to spin a tale to save her life... An adventure full of wit, danger and incident, murder and mystery, poetry and philosophy - and testament to the power of the imagination - Scheherazade sweeps from the historical realities of Arabian life into a world of magic carpets and miraculous beings, seamlessly weaving fact, fiction and fable into a novel rich with all the heady power of the Arabian Nights." -back cover.