By the author of the highly acclaimed literary bestseller "Dictionary of the Khazars", "Landscape Painted with Tea", Milorad Pavic's second novel, is a tale of mysterious quest that is part modern Odyssey and part crossword puzzle. It begins with the story of a brilliant but failed architect in Belgrade and his search for his father, an officer who vanished in Greece during World War II. The truth about his fate--some of it set in motion 2,000 years ago and some of it by the Nazis-- is raveled in the history and secrets of Mount Athos, the most ancient of all monasteries, perched atop its inaccessible mountain on the Aegean.