Arran de la Guerra Poètica, un nou Imperi otomà domina Occident. Europa ha quedat devastada i ara el centre del món és a Istanbul, on es concentren les biblioteques més imponents i ben assortides de l?Imperi. Qui té més llibres té més poder, i el sultà, Mehmed IX, no en té mai prou i recorre a l?Alfred Muntaner, un caçador de llibres nascut a Barcelona.In 2052 the world order is no longer what it was. A new Ottoman Empire, ruled by Sultan Mehmed IX, dominates the West after winning the Poetic War with a deadly and destructive virus. Europe has been laid to waste and very few people remain. The Sultan is a booklover, and in the Constitution that he put in place when he came to power, it states that under his rule, those who had the largest number of cookbooks will have access to more power and prestige. The Sultan and his two friends (a noble and an emir), the three people in the Empire with the biggest libraries, make a bet: whoever gets hold of the first edition of N. Luján and J. Perucho?s cookbook will absorb the libraries belonging to the other two. To try to win, each one chooses a team of book hunters. Mehmed?s is headed by Alfred Muntaner, who was born in Barcelona and knew Joan Perucho when he was a child, as the journalist and writer was a customer at his father?s bookbinding workshop. The adventure takes them to Barcelona, a city that is almost deserted, populated only by small groups of guerrilla survivors and invaded by vegetation that is growing out of control. In this scenario, they find the book they are seeking. But Alfred has other plans: he makes it look like he has died during a skirmish with the idea of never returning to Istanbul and starting a new life in Barcelona.