The novel belongs to one of the greatest writers of modern Turkey. The author is a master of sharp, engrossing plot. The story begins in the 1920s—that is, the era of the Kemalist revolution in Turkey—and the last scenes unfold in the 1950s. Before the reader passes a procession of people standing at different levels of the social ladder: officials, wealthy men, major swindlers and petty crooks, drug traders and pious, sanctimonious prudes.