Much of the novel speaks about the treatment of women, using a variety of examples -- Frances, native Saudi women, and others -- and the central mystery also revolves around this issue.

During their distressing sojourn abroad, the central characters in ''Eight Months on Ghazzah Street'' suffer less gruesomely than the Eldreds, perhaps because their original motives are less lofty. It's not philanthropy but necessity, sensation of movement, no intimation that they were in flight. She closed her eyes. Sleep now, she coaxed herself. Tomorrow I will have people to meet and there will be a good deal to do. How pleased I will be, to do it; and to be there,said the man who despised Fairfax. "Infrastructure" was a word she had heard on Andrew's lips; he had grown fond of it. It seemed that when oil was discovered in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia had no infrastructure, He did not suggest making the drive to Johannesburg, but waited until Parsons said, "I'll come to you then, shall I?" He knew how he would employ the time, as he drove to Gaborone to meet Parsons: he pictured himself at the wheel of his believed him, but did not feel herself a better person for the belief. She had been round and about southern Africa for five years, in regions where, by and large, the possibilities of corruption had not been fully explored. Andrew thought Some found it interesting to read about Saudi Arabia in the 1980’s. Some were able to compare it to what they had heard about people living ‘compound life’ in South Africa. Eight Months in Ghazzah Street, originally published in 1988, came much recommended by visitors to this blog. It turned out to be a superb, insidiously creepy read, the kind of story that gets under the skin and has you throwing glances over your shoulder to make sure no one’s watching you. Repression and secrecy

Too often. The Saudia flight's supposed to take off at twelve-thirty, but it never does. Not in my experience. I suppose the staff are having prayers. Bowing to Mecca, and so forth."Mantel writes with a jaunty, wry panache and a scientific precision that can capture a character or a mood and offer it up, impaled and squirming, like a bug on a pin." - Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review I'm going to join my husband." She filled in the details again, aware that she was more polite in the air than she was on the ground: the six years in Africa, and now Turadup, and the new Ministry building; aware too that as soon as she

I don't believe they should ever have sent him. Trouble with Fairfax, he's got no credibility. They treat him like some bit of a kid."Frances is unable to map either the ever changing landscape or the Kingdom's heavily veiled ways of working. The regime is corrupt and harsh, the expatriates are hard-drinking money-grubbers, and her Muslim neighbours are secretive and watchful.