An impossible murder, an occult detective tale, and a tale within a tale . The story contains several characters: Paul Harley, an independent investigator; Nicol Brinn, a renowned world adventurer, and Philomena Abingdon, an English beauty whose father dies under mysterious circumstances. This pulp mystery combines them and several other characters into the strange world of Fire-Tongue that may be the name of a cult, the name of a prophesied Zoroastrian god-messiah, or simply a cold-blooded assassin.Or maybe all three.