"Umbereen Currim Asif Khan, a recent widow with a seven-year-old daughter and newly appointed ambassador to the United States, finds herself enmeshed in Wahington and international intrigue—and in personal dilemmas. Some Embassy staff resent that she is a woman, while the Washington diplomatic corps treat her as a woman to bed, not to engage in serious discussion, and there is growing evidence of threats to her country from neighbouring nations. She encounters the Vice President, a man she had met several times before, a man whose stand on political and humanitarian issues she had found distasteful. Yet she soon discovers that not only have his views changed but that she is, inexplicably, against her will, drawn to him as a man, experiencing emotions she had never before known. In the context of the most devastating cyclone in Bangladesh history, professional and personal matters become inextricably entwined, with dramatic consequences." (jacket)