Publisher's Summary

From Salman Rushdie, New York Times best-selling author, Booker Prize-winner, and one of the great voices in contemporary literature, comes a majestic novel that solidifies the author's right to a Nobel Prize, which Kirkus Reviews says "he deserves more than any other living writer".

When Maximilian Ophuls is murdered outside his daughter's home by his Kashmiri Muslim driver, it appears to be a political killing. Ophuls is the former U.S. ambassador to India and America's leading figure in counter-terrorism. But there is much more to Ophuls and his assassin, a mysterious man calling himself "Shalimar the Clown", than meets the eye. One woman is at the center of their shared history, a history of betrayal and deception that moves from World War II Europe to the troubled Kashmir region to contemporary America.

Rushdie effortlessly weaves a series of interconnected narratives to form a sweeping and ambitious tale, at once timeless and startlingly modern, that reaches back through the years and across the continents.

©2005 Salman Rushdie; (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC