In Saadawi's Baghdad, strange things are afoot. There have been sightings of a grotesque figure on a killing spree without any apparent motive or pattern. A junk dealer who goes by the name Hadi has been claiming that the criminal is a corpse made out of different body parts from different victims of several bombings in Baghdad. Such is the basic set up of Ahmed Saadawi's novel which uses its supernatural premise to explore the lives of the people affected by secular violence that has been plaguing Iraq ever since the American occupation and the lives of the people affected. It is a visceral and harrowing novel worthy of its literary namesake.