The Devil's Audit

A cabaret in a converted Ottoman bathhouse declares nine hundred paying customers a night in a room that seats one hundred and forty — and every receipt is flawless. Dimitar Popov, a tax auditor whose greatest passion is correct rounding, is sent to close the place down. Instead he meets Lazarus Kain, an impresario who knows things he shouldn't, including the small lie on Dimitar's own tax return. Politicians start losing their trousers. Dimitar starts losing his nerve.