Death in Istanbul
February 4, 2012
By Anjana Basu
There have been Chinese detectives, women detectives, friar detectives and Indian detectives. When I read the first of the Yashim series, The Janissary Tree, I discovered that Jason Goodwin added another kind to the list — a eunuch detective and made a bold statement in the detective genre by breaking a new ground. Detective novels have been set in Istanbul before too but I don’t think any of their heroes have been quite like Yashim Togalu, a eunuch, both brilliant and near-invisible in the fast-changing world of the Ottoman Empire in 1836. A person who can shift from the inner quarters of the harem to the outer world because he has been given immunity status by the Sultan.
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