The Sheik is pissed. Along with his wives and children, the Sheik got
put on the wrong plane, and ended up waiting hours in the desert on a
hot tarmac for a crew that never came. As usual- it's Riya's fault.
Riya works for Discover Arabia, a rinky-dink tour guide company in the
far-flung desert outpost of Dubai. It's 1990, and the city's iconic
skyline, along with its global reputation, remains but a gleam in
developers' eyes. For twenty-five year-old Riya, Dubai is a desert
purgatory that spreads out between her family back home in India, and an
as-yet-defined future ahead of her. If she belongs to anything, it is to
the city's transient underclass of young people from South Asia, Africa,
and Europe who arrive with the ubiquitous goal of earning more than they
could at home.
Will a favor from Dubai's most notorious fixer get Riya back in
everyone's good graces? Or will the impending possibility of an invasion
by Saddam Hussein make Riya's problems (along with everyone else's) a
moot point?
Author Tania Malik presents a lovably sarcastic cast of misfits who will
undo the "guest worker" stereotype one tequila shot at a time, while
around them, international arms dealers, American soldiers, CIA
consultants, corrupt bosses, and wayward vacationers all compete for
Discover Arabia's attention, even as their world teeters on the cusp of
an explosive global conflict.
