John Parker is a Graduate-qualified English/Spanish Teacher, owner and director of CHAT ENGLISH, an English Language Centre in Avilés on the north coast of Spain . A voracious reader, he has particularly loved horror fiction for many years.
Inspector Ikmen, “the Morse of Istanbul”, featuring in the 19th book of the series, finds himself investigating the mysterious deaths of four nonagenarian siblings, each one stabbed through the heart in a mansion known as the Devil’s House.
There is no evidence of forced entry or burglary and all evidence must be garnered from letters and diaries. Meanwhile, elsewhere, there has been a rash of seemingly unrelated killings on the streets of Istanbul. The suspects in the crime claim to have been squatting in the crumbling Ottoman mansion where the murders took place. Enter Ikmen’s protégé Inspector Mehmet Suleyman, whose job it is to find the truth behind the random murders.
Nadel’s book moves along at a fairly sedentary pace but is none the worse for that. Her obvious knowledge of the ancient city of Istanbul works in her favour. The settings all appear to be authentic and the local people believable. Alongside the main plot we learn a lot about Sergeant Omer Mungun, Suleyman’s sergeant and Constable Barcin Demirtas. Demitras is a young woman brought onto the case from the Traffic Division because she is able to translate the Ottoman script used in the letters that form part of the evidence. Upon meeting Suleyman and Mungun, a love triangle forms as she lusts after Suleyman while Mungun lusts after her. Complications arise…
All in all, an interesting book that should please the author's faithful followers, as well as new readers as it works perfectly as a stand-alone novel.
