A road to Damascus (First American edition.)

A CINEMATIC DEBUT OF A PROMISING YOUNG NOVELIST FROM LEBANON--A FAUX-THRILLER ABOUT A RECLUSIVE BOTANIST WHO WITNESSES A POLITICAL MURDER AND IS DRAWN INTO A PERSONAL INVESTIGATION--A captivating thriller that reveals a family's intergenerational secrets, a nation's deepest fears, and an underground world of politics, religion, and society.

Beirut at dawn. A bus leaves the Charles Helou station en route to Damascus.

Seven passengers are on board, one of whom is a prominent Lebanese politician.

Before crossing the border, the bus is accosted and derailed.

All seven passengers are gunned down. A botanist studying a rare occurrence of acacias nearby witnesses the horror.

While the nation around him plunges into conspiracy theories and chaos, the botanist realizes he holds the only clue to the mystery: his injured Acacia.

This sends him on a quest for answers, through a minefield of national fears and family secrets, deep into a private underworld.