This is the story of two successive military coups in an Arab country. The first is accomplished by a republican secularist junta and the second by Islamists. The narrator, Bassam Bourasin, an eccentric and zealous bank clerk, decides to write down a top-secret report, to protest against his incarceration by the new regime. His purpose was to clean up himself from the heavy charges he was facing and prove that he was well devoted to the new masters of the country. As the narrative develops, he unveils many details about his life in his village, 'Ouja, and his new condition in jail. Thus, he tells the reader about his obsessions and secret ambitions, his old mother living in the past with the British settlers, his fiancee Dalila whose hugging or kissing is forbidden to him by social traditions, and his secret archives where he had managed to record for the posterity many details concerning life and people of 'Ouja. That entire world collapsed when a coup overthrew the King, and the big purge started. What happened to him and his boss, Mr Aroussi, was all the more painful that the man for whom he was working as a snitch, the mighty chief of the party's cell, Hamda La'war, was still free. The latter was considered a national hero in the country, since he was awarded the Order of High Merit from the former king, for cuckolding the village's shoemaker and getting an eye punctured in the brawl. To obtain the same medal, Bassam was ready to do anything, even if he had to convince the new masters of the country of a conspiracy against the security of the state being concocted by the cooks of the prison and their occult allies. That is the second purpose of his top-secret report, which he intends to submit to the authorities. But out of the blue, a second coup led by the Islamists happened; a mutiny burst out in prison, and Bassam was forced to readjust his views to be in the "right" direction of the wind. Henceforth, he devotes himself to the Islamist cause and tries to be the benevolent "historian" of the Islamist "revolution." Taken between the anvil and the hammer and fearing for his life, he endeavours to prove that he had always supported the Islamists since he had discovered the plot of the cooks. He does not mind if some of his new "friends" are members of the Mafia or trained terrorists. His dream is to be always useful, and his ambition is to be like his hero, John Law, a great brain of the finances. It is an acquaintance from prison who will help him make his dream true. Hassan, an opportunist journalist, will be propelled to the front scene by the new regime. The powerful Director of State Security will make a deal with Bassam. He will release him, make him a rich businessman and offer him to marry his sister Sophia. He will use him as a screen in some not very orthodox deals. Somehow unaware, Bassam will be transformed into a merchant of weapons and, occasionally, a constructor and share-holder in an important bank. Meanwhile, the civil war burst out. The country is divided. Some people are with the new regime; others will side with "The Scoundrel" — i.e. the former president who had taken refuge in the oil-rich desert. An odious massacre is perpetrated in 'Ouja. The Islamists and their rivals charge each other of the slaughter. Bassam is caught in a dilemma. He suspects Hassan of being the instigator of the massacre in which his mother and former fiancee were killed. Then who is Hassan? Who is Bassam? Are they not the obverse and the reverse of the same coin?