"I like Pakistan," writes Cheryl Benard. "I want to say that right at the outset, to avoid any misunderstandings. Its cities are distinctive and alluring. . . . I like what the British left behind: a widespread command of good English, a dry sense of humor, and, as their final gift, the uppityness that comes of having rousted them."
That said, Benard goes on to note that "to be shot, decapitated, stabbed, or otherwise meet a hideous fate, is commonplace in Peshawar." This city, she writes, nonetheless "holds its own peculiar fascination."
Detective Iqbal has been sent from the capital to investigate the disappearance of American businessman Mickey Malone. The antithesis of the loudmouthed "Ugly American," Malone was dispatched by his firm to meet a customer in Peshawar on Pakistan's Northwest Frontier. He checks in to the Khyber Inter-Continental, where kissing scenes have been expunged from the movies on the TV and a sign at the bar entrance reads "For non-Muslim foreign passport holders only."