War

During each of the novel's four main sections, a war or other prolonged political conflict is ongoing in that part of the world. Even though only two of the novel's man characters, Harry Burton and Raza Ashraf, are at all involved in politics or the military, at each occasion the political conflict inevitably spills into the civilian lives of the other characters, to varying degrees. The first and most striking example of this comes during the brief section that is set in Nagasaki, when the city is the target of an atomic bomb deployed by the American military. The bomb is exclusively designed to injure and kill Japanese citizens, and this is precisely what happens, seriously injuring Hiroko while killing her fiancé, Konrad Weiss.

During the second section of the novel, in Delhi, India, the military conflicts take place more subtly and less violently, but still...