This is the first book in a series (of twelve books in all) about life in a twenty-first century Arab country where the old laws of concubinage and slavery still apply. David Ransome has lived in England since he was four years old, and is a post-graduate student at Oxford University when his grandfather dies, and by an odd sequence of events he inherits the throne of the Emirate of Kobekistan. The Emir is the absolute ruler, and in “Absolute Delights” we watch the process of change whereby an easy-going ordinary English young man is transformed by power into a cruel autocratic Emir who is quite capable of having an annoying concubine killed out of hand. The effect of this on his English fiancée contrasts strangely with the changes in his mother’s attitude.
