Reviews Article |
CSI: Istanbul
A lush tale of love and murder in the sunset of the Ottoman Empire
By Blythe Copeland
The Sultan's Seal by Jenny White (W. W. Norton & Company, $24.95)
Boston University anthropology professor Jenny White trades academic papers for political plots in her first novel, about murder in the dying Ottoman Empire. When an English governess drowns while wearing a pendant inscribed with the seal of the palace, a young magistrate ties her death to an almost identical one eight years before. The investigation tangles him up in a knot of secret affairs, lost loves, and political mutiny, connecting the royal family, the British ambassador, and a Muslim woman. White's complicated story gets off to a slow start, but her evocative prose and plot twists pull the reader to the satisfying ending.
Originally published in Boston magazine, February 2006
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