His story begins at the bar of the Baron Hotel, in Aleppo in northern Syria, “the last outpost of faded splendor in an otherwise rackety and filthy town,” where Agatha Christie reportedly wrote the first part of “Murder on the Orient Express.” Moss has no trouble finding male companions — in fact, young men can’t help but throw themselves at him — and soon after he lands in Damascus, he’s in bed with Jihad, a former Palestinian commando. “What gay man wants a gay libber for a lover when he can have a Palestinian commando?” Moss asks as they wander through Damascus, tailed by the secret police. Moss is also exposed to the country’s bloody history; while on a trip to eastern Syria, he ends up at the site of a mass grave from the 1980 slaughter of nearly 1,000 political detainees, their murders a retaliation for a failed presidential assassination.
