An Evil Eye
A Novel
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4.1 • 19 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
From the Edgar® Award–winning author of The Janissary Tree comes the fourth and most captivating Investigator Yashim mystery yet!
It takes a writer of prodigious talents to conjure the Istanbul of the Ottoman Empire in all its
majesty. In three previous novels, Jason Goodwin has taken us on stylish, suspenseful, and vibrant excursions into its exotic territory. Now, in An Evil Eye, the mystery of Istanbul runs deeper than ever before.
It's 1839, and the admiral of the Ottoman fleet has defected to the Egyptians. It's up to the intrepid Investigator Yashim to uncover the man's motives. Of course, Fevzi Ahmet is no stranger to Yashim—it was Fevzi who taught the investigator his craft years ago. He's the only man whom Yashim has ever truly feared: ruthless, cruel, and unswervingly loyal to the sultan. So what could have led Yashim's former mentor to betray the Ottoman Empire?
Yashim's search draws him into the sultan's seraglio, a well-appointed world with an undercurrent of fear, ambition, and deep-seated superstition. When the women of the sultan's orchestra begin inexplicably to grow ill and die, Yashim discovers that the admiral's defection may be rooted somewhere in the torturous strictures of the sultan's harem.
No one knows more about the Ottoman Empire and Istanbul than Jason Goodwin, of whom Janet
Maslin wrote in The New York Times: "Mr. Goodwin uses rich historical detail to elevate the books in this series . . . far above the realm of everyday sleuthing."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edgar-winner Goodwin's masterful fourth mystery thriller set in Istanbul under the Ottoman Turks (after The Bellini Card) finds his series hero, the eunuch Yashim, attempting to navigate treacherous political shoals following the death of Sultan Mahmut II in 1840. International pressures heighten the uncertainty surrounding the empire's direction under Mahmut's youthful successor. In this tense climate, Yashim looks into the killing of an unknown man dumped in a Christian monastery's cistern. A flap of skin cut from the body bearing a death's-head brand, an item that someone tries to take from Yashim at gunpoint, may point to a Russian connection to the murder. While Goodwin excels at plotting, the book's main strength lies in the assured depiction of a nation restrained by a corrupt leadership far removed from the old traditions of transparency and justice. The details of how Yashim prepares meals may amuse Robert Parker fans.
