Three naïve Italian liberals, exiled in Istanbul, have bungled their instructions to kill a Polish prince-instead, they've kidnapped him and absconded to an unused farmhouse. Little do they realize that their revolutionary cell has been penetrated by their enemies, who are passing along false orders under the code name La Piuma, the Feather.
It falls to Yashim to unravel all this-he's convinced that the prince is alive and that the Italians have hidden him somewhere. But there are just a few problems: He has no idea who La Piuma is, and he's in no mood to put up a fight-he's fallen in love! As he draws closer to the farmhouse and to the true identity of La Piuma, what Yashim discovers leaves him shocked and in the most dangerous situation of his career.
Goodwin has an eye for detail like no other, and in The Baklava Club he conjures Istanbul in all its glorious exoticism. This is a breathtaking, extraordinary conclusion to one of the most beloved series in mystery fiction, and its ending will leave you truly astonished.
In nineteenth-century Istanbul, a Polish prince has been kidnapped. His assassination has been bungled and he's held captive in an unused farmhouse. Little do the kidnappers realise that their revolutionary cell has been penetrated by their enemies. Yashim is convinced that the prince is alive. As he draws closer to the prince's whereabouts, Yashim finds himself in the most treacherous situation of his career.
Året är 1838. Maximilien Lefèvre, en fransk arkeolog, anländer till Istanbul för att söka efter en försvunnen bysantisk skatt. Hans närvaro skapar oro i stadens grekiska grupperingar och snart hittas hans kropp stympad. Detektiven Yashim, som i ett svagt ögonblick försökt hjälpa mannen ur landet, åtar sig att lösa fallet. Spåren leder honom tillbaka i historien, till den häpnadsväckande sanningen om ett ljusskyggt sällskap som vigt sina liv åt att bevara de gamla bysantiska rikets skatter.
Ormstenens gåta är den andra fristående boken av tre om den osmanske detektiven Yashim. Första boken, Eunuckens gåta, blev belönad med Edgar Award, USA:s stora deckarpris.
When the body of a Russian agent is found down a monastery well, Yashim knows exactly who to blame. Fevzi Ahmet Pasha, ruthless commander of the Ottoman fleet. Years ago, Fevzi Ahmet was his mentor. And now Yashim must confront the secret that Fevzi Pasha has been keeping all these years, a secret whose roots lie deep in the tortured atmosphere of the sultan's harem...
When the admiral of the Ottoman fleet defects to the Egyptians, Investigator Yashim attempts to uncover the man's motives. But Fevzi Pasha is no stranger to Yashim: it was Pasha, in fact, who taught the investigator his craft years ago. He is the only man whom Yashim has ever truly feared: ruthless, cruel, and unswervingly loyal to the sultan. What dark secret has led his former mentor to betray the Ottoman Empire?
Unraveling Pasha's curious history, Yashim is drawn ever deeper into the closed world of the sultan's seraglio, an intimate household populated by the young ruler's women, children, slaves, and eunuchs. It is a well-appointed world ruled by fear, ambition, and deep-seated superstitions—a lap of luxury where talented girls hold sway in the ladies' orchestra.
But as the women of that orchestra inexplicably grow ill and die, Yashim discovers that his investigations into the admiral's defection have their roots in the torturous strictures of the sultan's harem, where every secret is sacred: a place where the normal rules are suspended, and where women can simply disappear.
Istanbul, 1840: the new sultan, Abdulmecid, has heard a rumor that Bellini's vanished masterpiece—a portrait of Mehmed the Conqueror—may have resurfaced in Venice. Yashim, our eunuch detective, is promptly sent to investigate, but—aware that the sultan's advisers are against any extravagant repurchase of the painting—decides to deploy his disempowered Polish ambassador friend, Palewski, to visit Venice in his stead. Palewski arrives in disguise in down-at-the-heel Venice, where a killer is at large, as dealers, faded aristocrats, and other unknown factions seek to uncover the whereabouts of the missing Bellini.
But is it the Bellini itself that endangers all or something associated with its original loss? And how is it that all of the killer's victims are somehow tied to the alluring Contessa d'Aspi d'Istria? Will the Austrians unmask Palewski, or will the killer find him first? Only Yashim can uncover the truth to the manifold mysteries.
Istanbul, 1838. In his palace on the Bosphorus, Sultan Mahmud II is dying, and the city swirls with rumors and alarms. The unexpected arrival of a French archaeologist determined to track down lost Byzantine treasures throws the Greek community into confusion. Yashim Togalu is once again enlisted to investigate. But when the archaeologist's mutilated body is discovered outside the French embassy, it turns out there is only one suspect: Yashim himself.
As the body count starts to rise, Yashim must uncover the startling truth behind a shadowy society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, encountering along the way such vibrant characters as Lord Byron's doctor and the Sultan's West Indies–born mother, the Valide. With striking wit and irresistible flair, Jason Goodwin takes us into a world where the stakes are high, betrayal is death—and the pleasure to the listener is immense.
The third book in Jason Goodwin's celebrated series takes Yashim from the winding alleyways of Istanbul to the decaying grandeur of Venice. Charged by the Sultan to find a stolen painting by Bellini, he enlists the help of his friend Palewski, the Polish Ambassador, and goes undercover. Venice in 1840 is a city of empty palazzos and silent canals, and Palewski starts to mingle with Venetian dealers - self-made men, faded aristocrats and the hedonistic Contessa. But when two bodies turn up in the canal, he realises that art in Venice is a deadly business. And meanwhile, what has happened to Yashim?
Istanbul 1838. Lefevre, a French archaeologist, has arrived in Istanbul determined to uncover a lost Byzantine treasure. Yashim is hired to investigate him, but when the man turns up dead, there is only one suspect: Yashim himself. Once again, the investigator finds himself in a race against time to uncover the startling truth behind a shadowy secret society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, caught in a deadly game deep beneath the city streets, a place where the stakes are high - and betrayal is death...
The Janissary Tree, the first book in a new series, is set in a most extraordinary world and features a most extraordinary sleuth.
It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Togalu, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world.
You see, Yashim is a eunuch.
He leads us into the palace's luxurious seraglios and Istanbul's teeming streets, and leans on the wisdom of a dyspeptic Polish ambassador, a transsexual dancer, and a Creole-born queen mother. He finds sweet salvation in the arms of another man's wife (this is not your everyday eunuch). And he introduces us to the Janissaries. For 400 years earlier the sultan had them crushed. Are the Janissaries staging a brutal comeback?
The plague of 1665 was followed by the Great Fire of London in 1666: great disasters evoking great responses. Those events re-fashioned the London landscape, and Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year re-fashioned English literature.
