Mind's Eye

Paul McAuley

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When Alfie Flowers chances on a strange piece of graffiti daubed on the window of a north London restaurant, the violence of his reaction takes him by surprise. The thorny circle of dashes and zigzags reaches right inside his brain and triggers a flashback to a terrifying childhood accident that left him with a peculiar form of epilepsy. Convinced that the elusive graffiti artist, 'Morph', possesses clues to his past, Alfie sets out to track him down. His search, taking him down the back alleys of London's street culture and involving him in a series of spectacularly gruesome murders, leads to the mysterious Nomads' Club, the rituals of a lost tribe, and a secret history of espionage and mind-altering patterns - glyphs - connected with the disappearance of his father some twenty years before. But the real source of the glyphs is hidden amidst the chaos of post-war Iraq. There, deep inside an ancient network of caves, lie powerful secrets sought by people with sinister and dangerous motives. People who are determined to do whatever it takes to prevent Alfie and the Nomads' Club from interfering with their plans.