After a fellow agent and close friend is murdered, agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, aka OSS 117, is ordered to take his place at the head of a poultry firm in Cairo. This is to be his cover while he investigates Jack's death, monitors the Suez Canal, checks up on the Brits and Soviets, burnishes France's reputation, quells a fundamentalist rebellion, and brokers peace in the Middle East. A blithe and witty send-up not only of 1950s and '60s spy films and the suave secret agent figure, but also of neo-colonialism, ethnocentrism, and the very idea of Western covert action in the Middle East.