''Salman Rushdie''s greatest novel'' Sunday Times Moraes ''Moor'' Zogoiby is the last in line of a crooked and fantastical dynasty of spice merchants and crime lords from Cochin. He is also a compulsive storyteller and an exile. As we travel with him on a route that takes him from India to Spain, he spins his labyrinthine family tale of mad passions and volcanic family hatreds. But does the India of his parents - populated by extravagant artists, piratical gatekeepers and mysterious lost paintings - still exist? And will he ever discover what became of his fiery and tempestuous mother? Moraes'' epic quest to uncover the truth of the past is a love story to a vanishing world, and also its last hurrah. **One of the BBC''s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**