Skip to main content

Review of The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin

Genre: Historical mystery thriller
Year of publication: 2006
No. in series: 1
Series detective: Yashim Togalu
Type of investigator: Private investigator
Setting & time: Istanbul, Turkey, 1830s

Story:
Yashim Togulu, the 19th century equivalent of a modern private investigator/spy, is approached by the head of the Turkish Sultan’s new modernised army in Istanbul and asked to investigate the kidnapping of four young officers and the murder of one of them, presumably by men belonging to what remains of the old army, the dreaded Janissaries. They had been forcibly disbanded 10 years earlier, but now seem to be planning a coup. At the same time the Validé, the Sultan’s mother, summons Yashim and asks him to find out who stole her jewels and murdered a young concubine in the harem.
What follows is a thriller full of mysterious happenings, gruesome deaths, fire, chases and several near-death experiences for Yashim.

Review:
This is a well-written and -plotted mystery thriller, with interesting twists and terrific descriptions of 19th century Istanbul and Turkish society of that time. The only gripe I have with it is that Yashim, the eunuch hero, is a bit too perfect. He is good looking, intelligent, resourceful, a good fighter, great cook and expert lover (see note), plus being extraordinarily lucky. He is, in fact, the 19th century incarnation of James Bond. Making him a eunuch inserts something for him to be unhappy about, thus lessening the dazzling perfection of his character, but it also makes him a more perfect action hero as it enables him to enter the Sultan’s harem to investigate crimes in there, and also to safely make love to women without fear of getting them pregnant, allowing the author to insert plenty of sex. A stroke of genius, really.

Rating: A very atmospheric and thrilling mystery. 3+ stars.

Note: If you’re wondering how Yashim can make love: it is not implicitly stated in the book that erections are involved. Yashim could just have really, really good manual and oral skills, although how he manages the latter with a moustache, I couldn’t say.

Awards and nominations:
2007 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel
2007 Macavity Award for Best Novel, finalist
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Icelandic folk-tale: The Laughing Merman

Icelanders not only believed in the existence of selkies, but also in mer-people. The mermaids were said to be very beautiful, while the mermen were supposed to be ugly as sin but very wise and able to see things others did not. O nce upon a time a farmer went out fishing and pulled up a merman. He tried to get the merman to talk to him but he would not answer, except to beg him to release him back into the sea, but this the farmer refused to do. The farmer rowed back to land, taking the captive merman with him. When he pulled up the boat on the shore, his wife came to him and greeted him with tenderness and kisses, which he received with pleasure. This made the merman laugh. Then the man’s dog came to him and greeted him tenderly in the way of dogs, by jumping up to him, but the farmer hit the dog. Again the merman laughed. Then the farmer walked up towards his house, but on the way he tripped over a tussock and hurt himself. He got angry and gave the tussock a good kicking. Then...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...
Post a Comment
Read more

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove...
Post a Comment
Read more