Tag: Turkey

Day 319: Murder on the Orient Express

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Cover for Murder on the Orient ExpressMurder on the Orient Express is Agatha Christie’s classic mystery featuring Hercule Poirot. Everyone has of course seen the lush 1974 movie featuring a flock of movie stars and Albert Finney as Poirot.

Hercule Poirot is visiting Istanbul when he unexpectedly receives a telegram prompting him to cancel his plans and book a seat on the Orient Express leaving that night. He is able to book a compartment in first class, but only after some difficulty.

Poirot’s fellow passengers include a Russian princess, a Hungarian count and countess, a Swedish missionary, a British colonel, an annoying American widow, and other unusual characters. As always with Christie, her characters are expertly and colorfully drawn.

On board the train, Poirot is approached by the repellent Mr. Ratchett, an American businessman who believes his life is being threatened, asking for protection. Poirot dislikes Ratchett and declines his offer.

After a disturbed night, during which Poirot is awakened by a cry and spies a woman in a lurid silk kimono walking down the hall, Ratchett’s body is found dead in his compartment. He has been stabbed 12 times. The railroad executive traveling on the train begs Poirot to attempt to solve the crime before the train reaches Yugoslavia.

It begins to look as if an intruder disguised in a railway uniform broke into Ratchett’s compartment and murdered him then escaped out into the snow. Poirot’s investigation turns up a suggestion that Ratchett was the leader of a gang who kidnapped and killed the child Daisy Armstrong (a crime based upon that of the Lindbergh kidnapping), resulting in much tragedy for the family. He also begins finding links between some of the passengers and the Armstrongs.

This particular mystery is famous not only for its exotic locales but also for the unusual solution to the murder. Despite my familiarity with the plot, it made enjoyable reading.

Day 271: The Abyssinian Proof

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Cover for The Abyssinian ProofIn 19th century Istanbul, the magistrate Kamil Pasha  is assigned to find out who is stealing valuable relics throughout the city and selling them to London. He is instructed to find the relics and bring them back to where they belong. One of the relics is contained in a reliquary that has been guarded since the last days of the Byzantine Empire by a sect of Abyssinian descent called the Melisites. The relic is called the Proof of God.

Kamil is an upright and dedicated civil servant. While he is investigating, he learns about the history and beliefs of an odd group of people, the descendents of Abyssinian slaves who live in an abandoned cistern and are part of the city’s underworld.

In pursuit of the relic thieves and in investigation of some apparently related murders, we follow Kamil through the subterranean passages under Istanbul.

Kamil is also attracted to Elia, a refugee artist who lives in his sister’s house. Elia has suffered terribly, though, and is not really prepared to pursue more than friendship.

As with Barbara Nadel’s more modern Turkish mysteries, I find novels set in this exotic locale interesting, and the history presented in The Abyssinian Proof is fascinating. Sometimes, I wish that Kamil Pasha wasn’t quite such a serious man, however.

Day 46: The Winter Thief

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Cover for The Winter ThiefThe Winter Thief is the latest of Jenny White’s mysteries set in late 19th Century Istanbul about the investigations of the honest and hard-working Special Prosecutor Kamil Pasha.

It is a freezing cold, wintery holiday in Istanbul when Vera Arti visits an Armenian publisher to try to convince him to publish The Communist Manifesto in Armenian. Disappointed in her attempts, she doesn’t notice when someone follows her home. When her husband Gabriel returns abruptly to their apartment and tells her they must leave immediately, she argues that she must pack her things. He leaves her to get a carriage for them, but while he is gone, she is taken by the Sultan’s new secret police.

In another part of the city there has been a bank robbery and next door a massive explosion at a café followed by a fire where many people are injured or killed. Kamil Pasha is helping out at the scene when he finds evidence that his brother-in-law Huseiyn might be one of the victims.

Gabriel Arti’s mission is to open a socialist commune in Armenia, and to do that he arranged to purchase a shipment of illegal guns and robbed the bank. His fears for his wife lead him to seek the help of an enigmatic but powerful acquaintance of Kamil Pasha’s who helped him arrange the gun shipment. At the man’s suggestion, Gabriel departs for Trabzon and the commune, leaving the other man to try to find his wife.

Although the Ottoman empire has traditionally been one that tolerates people of different religions and race, tensions are rising. Vahid, a vicious, sadistic, conniving commander of the Sultan’s new secret police has a plot to gain more power by making the Sultan believe that the Armenians are a threat to the empire and then providing himself an opportunity to end the threat. Vahid believes that Huseiyn might have been having an affair with the woman he intended to marry, who died in the fire. In his efforts to find Huseiyn and wreak his vengeance, he runs up against Kamil Pasha and his sister, who is frantically trying to find her husband. The next thing he knows, Kamil Pasha has been framed for the murder of a young Armenian girl.

As we follow the adventures of all those people, as well as Gabriel, the members of the commune, and others, the book begins to feel too disorganized and diffuse. My interest flagged a little. However, the threads of the story all come back together when the Sultan dispatches Kamil Pasha to the wilds of Armenia with a small troop of soldiers to find out whether the new settlement is a band of Armenian revolutionaries or a harmless socialist commune.

Day 28: Dance with Death

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Barbara Nadel’s Turkish mystery novels are interesting because they usually involve one of the many minorities of Istanbul. Dance with Death takes place in the fascinating region of Cappodocia rather than in Istanbul, though. Inspector Çetin İkmen gets a call from his cousin asking him to come to Cappodocia. A body has been found in a cave, and his cousin believes it may be that of a girl with whom he was in love years ago. This girl, who was rambling around the Europe and then Turkey on vacation, simply disappeared, and he thought she had left him.

In the meantime, his colleague Mehmet Süleyman is still in Istanbul trying to catch an attacker of homosexuals.

Nadel’s Turkish mysteries are filled with detail about place and customs that I find irresistable. I almost always guess the killer fairly early, but sometimes this is my test of a mystery. If I still find it interesting even when I guess the solution, then it is worth reading. Dance with Death is full of the color of that mysterious region, and İkmen and Süleyman are sympathetic and interesting characters.

Except for one thing. A theme of men’s unfaithfulness runs through the books. Both Inspector İkmenand Süleyman have been unfaithful, even though they love their wives. I’m not sure if that is meant to indicate something cultural or not.