Barbara Nadel’s gripping Ikmen mysteries are the inspiration behind The Turkish Detective, BBC Two’s sensational eight-part TV crime drama series, out now.
Every relationship comes at a cost in this tense and gripping Turkish mystery from award-winning crime writer Barbara Nadel and featuring Ikmen – ‘one of modern crime fiction’s true heroes‘ The Times
When jeweller Fahrettin Muftugolu is found dead in his apartment in the Istanbul district of Vefa, it looks like suicide. Searching the jeweller’s home, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman and his team come across a hoard of extraordinary artefacts including solid gold religious relics and a mummified human head. But are they real and, if so, who owns these priceless possessions?
As his colleagues begin their investigation, Suleyman is distracted by troubles of his own. His wedding to Gonca Serekoglu is days away, but when Gonca receives her bridal bedcover from a Roma haberdasher and discovers that it is covered in blood, she sees this as a curse on their marriage. Suleyman asks his old friend Cetin Ikmen to help him uncover the truth, but the task is not that simple…
Meanwhile, as the stories swirling around Muftugolu become increasingly sinister, the dead man’s wife appears, laying claim to his valuables, and Suleyman is drawn into a dark and dangerous world of smuggling and savagery . . .
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Reviews
Complex and beguiling: a Turkish delight
Ikmen is one of modern crime fiction's true heroes, complex yet likeable, and the city he inhabits - Istanbul - is just as fascinating
Barbara Nadel's distinctive Istanbul-set Inspector Ikmen thrillers combine brightly coloured scene setting with deliciously tortuous plots - the resourceful Ikmen is always struggling with intractable cases
Inspector Çetin Ikmen is one of detective fiction's most likeable investigators, despite his grumpy and unsociable character . . . think of him as the Morse of Istanbul
Ikmen and Süleyman form an easygoing if tense partnership as ever, and Nadel has no equal when it comes to summoning the dark side of her fictional environment, behind the glossy image of tourist brochures
Nadel's deep passion for Turkish culture and her intimate knowledge of that land come through vividly in this riveting crime drama
The delight of Nadel's books is the sense of being taken beneath the surface of an ancient city . . . We look into the alleyways and curious dark quarters of Istanbul, full of complex characters and louche atmosphere
Fans of Barbara Nadel's Inspector Çetin Ikmen have had a front-row seat for the social and political changes that have been happening in Turkey, and revealing insights into the way they've affected the lives of the city's richly diverse inhabitants