Farewell, Brindavoine

Paris, 1914. In one auspicious night, Lucien Brindavoine's humdrum life is thrown into wild disarray. Out of the blue, a strange old man visits Brindavoine's flat and implores him to go to Istanbul to seek his destiny. No sooner are these fateful words spoken than a shot is fired through the window and the man is murdered by a mysterious assailant. Thus kicks off a madcap adventure wherein the mild-mannered dilettante Brindavoine races to the Middle East--by boat, plane, and jeep--with cutthroat assassins threatening him at every turn. After much ado, he encounters an iron city in the desert where an eccentric American billionaire will decide his fate--