Petrified (Inspector Ikmen 6)

Travel Guide

Istanbul was stewing in the humid, forty-degree heat of a midsummer afternoon, but the man’s skin felt as if it had just been removed from a refrigerator.

If the various shades and temperatures of a chilling crime in hot and humid Istanbul is your thing, then Barbara Nadel is your ideal guide.

First of all, this is not your usual corpse – mummified and with strange coloured eyes, this is one mystery that  is going to lead Cetin Ikmen  down some dark and dangerous paths. This man seems to be from Argentina..and so the plot thickens.

From the Jewish Quarter, we are then taken to Balat where two children have gone missing from their home

“The children had, seemingly vaporised out of the steep Balat streets as if by magic”

This is a side to Istanbul we had never seen before. Something strange is going on and these are not straight forward crimes. Not by a long shot. with the main protagonist, Cetin Ikmen with a mother who was known as ‘the famous witch of Uskudar’, that should probably give you some insight into the parts of Istanbul we’re now headed.

An interesting part of the novel lies in Melih Akdeniz and his ‘art’ made with human hair or other strange things and has created many enemies with his controversial themes.

And on top of these strange happenings, the melting pot of cultures continues to be stirred with each character seemingly practicing their own faith. A backdrop of religious antagonism and war therefore which brings wider world issues to the fore.