Cairo, 2001. An angel has been sighted, so people say, on the rooftops and balconies of the poor part of town - the Angel of Imbaba. Some believe, after the brutal child killings with their victims tortured and mutilated, that the angel has come to them in their hour of need. Meanwhile Makana, private investigator, ex-policeman and Sudanese refugee, is working undercover at Blue Ibis Tours. He is trying to find out who sent the boss a threatening letter, if you can call an obscure Quranic quotation threatening. Makana has taken the job as a favour to the son of an old friend, a lawyer who unlike Makana failed to leave Sudan alive. The boy is in love with the daughter of the travel agency's proprietor and hopes to make a good impression by recommending Makana for the job. For himself Makana is unimpressed by the couple's relationship and even more so when he meets an old acquaintance, Mo Damazeen, in their company. Back in Sudan Damazeen had been an outspoken artist, a radical, and a friend of Makana's wife but Makana now suspects Damazeen sits in tight with the Sudanese regime. At the run-down Blue Ibis agency Makana sets about getting to know his fellow staff members and the office's mysterious alpha-male seems intent on getting to know Makana, appropriating him as a driver for his numerous rendezvous around the city. Makana also befriends the receptionist, Meera, who seems out of place in the agency. She explains that she is married to a controversial scholar of Arabic. A popular TV imam denounced her husband both for his scholarly interpretations and for his marriage to a Coptic Christian. Meera was working as a teacher but both she and her husband lost their jobs as a result of the imam's pronouncement. So now she works at Blue Ibis Tours. She tells Makana that she knows about the threatening letter and that the agency received three letters. But she kept the other two - because Meera believes that the letters are meant for her.