The Destroyer of Men is the story of three people, and their difficult and turbulent relationships. It starts with a child who disappears and is assumed to be dead, but he mysteriously reappears twenty years later, abandoned in woodland in rural England. He is found by Jane Howard. She lives alone, haunted by her past, hiding from the real world, obsessed with her cats and her garden and the wild things that can do her no harm. She takes in waifs and strays, and for a while he is nothing more than an addition to her menagerie. But Jane is damaged and vulnerable.
The young man is extraordinarily beautiful, but he has terrible wounds that challenge all Jane's capabilities. He needs a great deal of care and attention, and Jane has not been a mother for a very long time. As he slowly recovers, he reluctantly reveals what has happened to him since he was abducted two decades ago.
We find out about the men who took him, the joys and sorrows that he has experienced, the interesting places and people that he has met, and about the great man, whom he is bound to and reliant on for everything in his life. It is a deep and profound and violent relationship, which is constantly evolving. The young man is an infidel, a kafir, a creature unworthy of love or respect, but his extreme physical beauty guarantees that he is always admired and desired and constantly in danger. He is psychologically frail. Jane Howard thinks he is gay, and cannot understand her strong physical attraction to him, but he has been locked away in a male dominated culture. He has been spoiled and pampered, raped and abused in a society made up entirely of men. There are no women. He is a devoted servant to the great Prince Abdul Aziz, in a land dominated by religion.
The Prince is a good man. He is an important man, who has been a Special Envoy for the United Nations, an Ambassador, and a friend to the great and the good. His work for the UN takes him to trouble spots all over the world. Together, they have seen death and disease, wars and natural disasters. The Prince is admired and respected, but flawed.
The bond between the Prince and his creature is so strong but it's like a poison. It's fed by jealousy and frustration, prejudice and a desperate need for redemption. There is sex and love, brutality and tenderness, despair and absolute perfect joy. The Prince is forbidden by his faith and his culture to love the creature, but it possesses his soul. He may not touch it, but cannot let it go. He is obsessed with the beautiful thing, and yet hates it because what he feels cannot possibly be love.
The young man does not recognize Jane Howard when he wakes up in her house. He wants to go home, but does not know anymore where he belongs. He must find his identity to understand what he needs. Will he return to his lover, who is forbidden to love him or try to start a new and different life carrying all the scars of his past?
