When `Q’ (written by the precursor of the Wu Ming collective, called Luther Blissett) was first published in Italy in 1999, it was an instant sensation. Here the protagonist, the mysterious Anabaptist known as El Alamein, returns. With an epic, panoramic sweep that reaches across a Europe scarred by war, Altai went straight into the bestsellers list when first published in Italy. When a fire breaks out in the Arsenal of Venice in 1569, everyone suspects Joseph Nasi, number-one enemy of the republic. But it is Emmanuele De Zante, spy catcher and agent, who finds himself in jail accused of treason, having been betrayed by his lover. But who is De Zante? When Nasi offers De Zante the chance to escape, he is launched on an odyssey that takes him to Thessalonika, the Jerusalem of the Balkans, all the way to the Sultan’s palace in Constantinople. Thrown into a maelstrom of political games with deadly consequences, De Zante finds betrayal and danger around every corner as the narrative races toward its devastating denouement.