The plot

Can the plot thicken without there being a plot yet?

Anyway, I would just like to note that there should be a fortune teller... and that fortune tellers prophesy should run throughout the book. Perhaps the book can start with the prophesy and the backround can be filled in later. All the prophesies should come true (although not at all in any literal sense, but in a way that has to be arrived at only with much stretching and redescribing of events)... except for the very last one.

The story should also contain a little bit of history... ancient history. I am thinking the city of sybaris, but as this is in Greece - a place I have never been to, I could change this... or I could add a Greek-Australian pilot flying for some obscure Middle Eastern airline to the melange.