‎"‎When the first armchair smashed into the asphalt‎,‎ Sergeant Ashmouni was at his usual spot on the median of the Nile Corniche‎,‎ trapped by the road‎'‎s twin currents turbulently flowing forth to Maadi and back to Old Cairo‎.‎ He was wiping the sweat away from his eyes with his worn out sleeve and in the process adding a new stain to his white traffic‎-police uniform when surprise from the thunderous impact catapulted him into the fast lane of the side of the road closest to the Nile‎.‎‎"‎

Thus opens this fast‎-paced city thriller laced with dry humor that takes us inside Borg al‎-Saada ‎'‎Tower of Happiness‎,‎ ‎'‎ one of the luxury high‎-rises planted like alien bodies amid the fields along the Nile south of Cairo and inside the sordid lives and lavish lifestyles of its superrich and famous denizens‎.‎ The naked‎,‎ strangled body of Ahlam‎,‎ a beautiful young actress‎,‎ is discovered in one of the elevators‎,‎ and as the police investigation gets under way‎,‎ we meet many of the tower‎'‎s strange characters‎:‎ the owner‎'‎s agent‎,‎ Kasib Bey‎,‎ overweight‎,‎ toupeed‎,‎ and decked in gold chains‎;‎ wealthy contractor Abd al‎-Tawab Mabruk Basha ‎(‎Tutu Basha to his friends‎)‎‎,‎ insomniac since Ahlam‎'‎s murder‎;‎ Abd al‎-Malak‎,‎ a psychic with a Ph‎.‎D‎.‎ in genetic engineering from MIT‎;‎ Farah‎,‎ his erstwhile sweetheart‎,‎ who has become one of the very candy dolls she used to scorn‎;‎ belly‎-dancer Lula Hamdi‎,‎ who would be able to see Timbuktu if she stood on top of a pile of all her money‎;‎ Madame Esmeralda‎,‎ the society lady from Chile‎;‎ and the homely Dr‎.‎ Mahgub‎,‎ somewhat less well off than his neighbors‎.‎ And of course there is Antar the naughty boy who roams the tower‎,‎ enters apartments‎,‎ and overhears conversations‎,‎ unsettling and exposing the decadent occupants and their relationships‎.‎