“Tonight the man will die.” This is the first sentence of The Arsonist’s City by Hala Alyan. The sentence sure grabbed me. Zacharia arrives home in Beirut. We learn through him about his home and family. As a child, he used to go with his mother to where she worked in a Idris’s home. Zacharia and Idris are childhood friends growing up. There is some falling out between them. Some men arrive at Zacharia’s home and take him. Next thing we know is Zacharia is “the man” in the first sentence.