Ahmad Harb

In the slums of Jordan, power circulates through fear, favors, and violence. Boomah, a volatile street enforcer, survives on petty extortion and intimidation because for those at the bottom, crime is the only work that pays. Children move through the same streets she controls, selling goods, running messages, learning the rules of danger before adulthood; Boomah frightens them, exploits them, and sometimes protects them, caught between the instincts of a predator and the shadow of her own abandoned childhood. Surrounded by women struggling to shield their families, she carries a fractured relationship to motherhood, shaped by loss and survival rather than care. When a new, more organized criminal force begins to restructure the underground economy, independent lives like hers grow increasingly disposable, and Boomah is pushed to confront what it means to survive in a world where violence is labor, children inherit the streets, and motherhood is both a wound and a responsibility.

A wary CIA officer investigates a charismatic man who sparks a spiritual movement and stirs political unrest. Who exactly is he? And what does he want?