at one time lydia and christopher were lovers as well as travel companions now they are merely fellow travelers while on a trip to morocco lydia notices a small mark on her hand which begins to grow and spread in thin tattooed lines that only she can see eventually the marks reveal themselves to be a detailed map of an unknown land and lydia begins to understand that these marks invisible to all but herself and a mysterious moroccan man named layesh will lead her on a strange and perilous journey the tattooed map is lydias journal of the days and weeks leading up to her disappearance each page contains her daily experiencesher growing shock and fear as the map unfolds itself her deteriorating relationship with christopher her conversations with strangersas well as the memorabilia she collects along the way maps and postcards train tickets and postage stamps lists of books shes reading and souvenirs shes boughtall pasted in the margins of the journal when lydia disappears midway through the journey her friend christopher takes up the journal using it first as a means of recording his search for her and then increasingly as a clue to her fate a combination travelogue mystery and ghost story the tattooed map is a mesmerizing physically beautiful book each page is gloriously decorated with the kinds of fascinating flotsam and jetsam that travelers find cluttering their pockets and notebooks at the end of a trip making the tattooed map a book youll want to return to again and again