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Summary
Summary
"The captivating return of Yashim, the eunuch investigator from the intelligent, elliptical and beguilingly written" "(The Times, London)" bestseller" The Janissary Tree
When a French archaeologist arrives in 1830s Istanbul determined to track down a lost Byzantine treasure, the local Greek communities are uncertain how to react; the man seems dangerously well informed. Yashim Togalu, who so brilliantly solved the mysterious murders in "The Janissary Tree," is once again enlisted to investigate. But when the archaeologist's mutilated body is discovered outside the French embassy, it turns out there is only one suspect: Yashim himself.
"The New York Times "celebrated "The Janissary Tree "as "the perfect escapist mystery," and "The Daily Telegraph "called it " A] tremendous first novel . . . Beautifully written, perfectly judged, humane, witty and captivating." With "The Snake Stone," Jason Goodwin delights us with another transporting romp through the back streets of nineteenth-century Istanbul. Yashim finds himself racing against time once again, to uncover the startling truth behind a shadowy society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, encountering along the way such vibrant characters as Lord Byron's doctor and the sultan's West Indies-born mother, the Valide. Armed only with a unique sixteenth-century book, the dashing eunuch leads us into a world where the stakes are high, betrayal is death--and the pleasure to the reader is immense.
Author Notes
JASON GOODWIN is the author of Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire , among other award-winning nonfiction. The Janissary Tree , his first novel and the first in a series featuring Yashim, was published in May 2006 to international acclaim.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Early 19th-century Istanbul's teeming mix of nationalities, religions and cultures comes alive in this vibrant sequel to the Edgar-winning The Janissary Tree (2006). When French archeologist Maximilien Lefevre begins asking very pointed, well-informed questions about long-lost Greek artifacts and then is found dead outside the French embassy, series hero Yashim, a Turkish eunuch, finds himself suspected of the murder. His efforts to clear his name take him from markets and wharves to palaces and underground tunnels as he uncovers a secret society, unearths sacred relics and hunts the murderer. Goodwin's secondary characters, particularly Yashim's close friend Stanislaw Palewski, the world-weary Polish ambassador, are distinct and memorable, and the mystery presents an entertaining challenge to the reader as well as to charming, determined Yashim. With his second effort as intricate and delightful as the first, Goodwin takes his rightful place among such distinguished British historical mystery writers as Lindsay Davis and the late Edith Pargeter. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The teeming streets of nineteenth-century Istanbul are the backdrop for this second installment in Goodwin's Edgar-winning series starring Turkish investigator Yashim Togalu. Yashim is a most unlikely sleuth, a eunuch and epicure whose benevolent manner and appearance enable him to blend into the background wherever he goes. When French archaeologist Maximilien Lefevre is found murdered just outside the French embassy, the trail of clues leads Yashim to a secret society devoted to the revival of the Byzantine Empire. (Shortly before his death, Monsieur Lefevre hid a mysterious sixteenth-century manuscript on a bookshelf in Yashim's flat.) Goodwin, a historian of the Ottoman Empire, peppers his mystery with vivid descriptions of Istanbul's cultural riches, including the Hippodrome with its sinister Serpent Column, whose green-black coils . . . referred to a dark enigma, like a blemish in the human soul. There are a few slow spots in the plot, but that's more than made up for by the host of intriguing characters. Among them: John Millingen, the notorious physician to Lord Byron, and Amelie, Monsieur Lefevre's lovely widow, who awakens in Yashim passions long suppressed.--Block, Allison Copyright 2007 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
When you read a historical mystery by Jason Goodwin, you take a magic carpet ride to the most exotic place on earth. Like its predecessor, "The Janissary Tree," winner of the Mystery Writers of America's 2007 Edgar Award for best novel, THE SNAKE STONE (Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25) is set in 19th-century Istanbul during the reign of Sultan Mahmut II and features the subtle sleuthing of Yashim Togalu, a eunuch with eyes and ears exquisitely attuned to the cacophony of life in his cosmopolitan world. But with the sultan on his deathbed after a 30-year reign, a deep unease has settled over the city, now poised uncertainly for a momentous historical shift. In such a setting, sudden violence is just part of the local color. Goodwin obliges with deadly assaults on a local vegetable seller, an old Greek book dealer, an Albanian waterman, a Jewish money-lender and, most interestingly, a French archaeologist whose search for treasure from an earlier era dramatizes the author's view of Istanbul as a city entwined in its own history. Like the Serpent Column in the Hippodrome, the origins of this writhing coil of humanity go back to before the Ottoman Conquest, even before the beginnings of the Byzantine Empire and Greek Constantinople. While Yashim acknowledges that "a city endures which also grows, forever adding new identities to the old," he finds himself digging deeper into the past to understand the murderous impulses of people who would reverse history to stunt such growth. The needless complications of the plot - which sees evil intent in everything from the journals of a learned Greek society to the induction rites of the watermen's guild - actually work in its favor by evoking the chaos of life in the ancient city that straddles the Golden Horn. Goodwin presents this in sumptuous detail, in scenes that take Yashim from the social heights of Topkapi Palace to the dregs of the docks, with a fragrant side trip into the spice market at the Grand Bazaar, source of the ingredients for the elaborate Ottoman dishes he serves his eccentric friend, Stanislaw Palewski, an ambassador of the now-defunct nation of Poland. Their erudite table talk is always lively, as are the conversations Yashim initiates with anyone who has a story to tell. These exchanges don't always have anything to do with the plot, but they provide the nicest kind of traveling music for that magic carpet ride. You couldn't ask for a more gracious introduction to the exotic world of Imperial Japan than the stately historical novels of I.J. Parker. Designed around an 11th-century provincial detective named Sugawara Akitada, these mysteries are saturated with details about the social milieu in which each investigation is set. ISLAND OF EXILES (Penguin, paper, $14) finds Akitada undercover on Sado Island, known for the penal colony that supplies slave labor for the local silver mines. It takes him a dangerously long time to discover who poisoned the colony's highest-ranking prisoner - the emperor's treasonous half-brother - and then framed the governor's son for the crime. But in disguise as a convicted murderer, Akitada is quick to learn the value of a man's life in a place where "a human being is nothing but a candle in the wind." Miyuki Miyabe's new mystery, THE DEVIL'S WHISPER (Kodansha, $24.95), illustrates some modern-day refinements on the punishments doled out to criminals in ancient Japan. When a Tokyo taxi driver is jailed after hitting and killing a woman with his cab, public opinion rapidly turns against his family. The persecution of a 16-year-old nephew living with the family is especially ugly; the boy is already being tormented at school because his father disappeared from his government job after embezzling public money. Miyabe's forte is suspense, and here it's built around the strange behavior of young women being driven to suicide. But the peculiar fascination of the story lies in its acute observations of the way masochistic shame and guilt play into the social conformity so inhibiting to the Japanese identity. Archer Mayor goes out of his way in CHAT (Grand Central, $24.99) to impress us with the ruggedness of native Vermonters. His series hero, Joe Gunther of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation, thinks the mountain topography and long, snowy winters have something to do with nurturing a local character at once "hardy, independent, self-sufficient and sometimes a little cranky." And when his brother and their invalid mother struggle back to health after a suspicious car crash, Joe has new respect for Yankee grit. But even the toughest of his taciturn neighbors has a soft spot when it comes to family, a theme Mayor delicately probes after the murders of two strangers open parental eyes to the dangers awaiting children in Internet chat rooms. It's cases like this that make Vermont winters seem longer and colder. Fair warning to Spenser fans: Robert B. Parker's normally funloving private eye sits on his mitts and turns unusually introspective in his latest adventure, NOW AND THEN (Putnam, $25.95), a condition brought on when he identifies too closely with a client. Not only is Dennis Doherty betrayed by his wife in a way that compromises his job with the F.B.I., but the poor guy is also murdered. And so is his adulterous wife, duped by her treacherous lover. This is all too much for Spenser, who gets drunk and broods about the time his beloved Susan was also lured away by a sinister lover. "Doherty has to matter to someone," he tells her, meaning it's time to settle his own scores. When that's done, maybe he and Susan can have a serious talk about the future. The sleuth in Jason Goodwin's crime novels is a eunuch living in 19th-century Istanbul.
Guardian Review
The sub-categories of the historical crime field are becoming increasingly narrow. Jason Goodwin's series - of which this is the second - features a eunuch sleuth from 19th-century Istanbul. Goodwin is a recognised authority on the Ottoman empire and a highly capable thriller writer to boot. Yashim, the Sultan's "discreet, personal problem solver", is obliged to play host to a nervous doctor who was present at the death of Lord Byron and is now on the run from a mysterious secret society. But the plot is secondary to Goodwin's sly wit, astute characterisation and spicy evocations of an imperial community to which Yashim, in his emasculated state, has unprecedented access. Particularly sumptuous are the impressions of harem women, "no more consequential than a tray of Belgian chocolates"; and the "clean, singeing smell" of grilled lamb in a neighbourhood restaurant, which suggests that kebab shops have rather let their standards slide. It comes to a powerful climax in the labyrinth of sewers beneath the city, as Yashim risks his life to save an attractive young woman. This eunuch has balls. Caption: article-pbfiction10.1 The sub-categories of the historical crime field are becoming increasingly narrow. Jason Goodwin's series - of which this is the second - features a eunuch sleuth from 19th-century Istanbul. Goodwin is a recognised authority on the Ottoman empire and a highly capable thriller writer to boot. - Alfred Hickling.
Kirkus Review
A leisurely mystery set in 19th-century Istanbul, the second in a series which began with The Janissary Tree (2006), winner of the 2007 Edgar Award. Providing continuity is Yashim, the eunuch and investigator who worked for the sultan. Now it's two years later, 1838, the sultan is dying, and Yashim has less clout, though he's still a confidant of the Queen Mother. The story starts with a bang when George, a Greek, is almost killed next to his vegetable stall. We'll find out much later that his misadventure is merely a red herring. Someone of more consequence is Max Lef'vre, a shady French archaeologist with a passion for Greek antiquities described in a book he hides in Yashim's apartment. Lef'vre is being pursued and begs Yashim for help; the eunuch gets him a berth on an Italian vessel, but next thing you know Lef'vre is found dead, his face eaten away by dogs, outside the French embassy, and Yashim finds himself under suspicion. Who was pursuing the Frenchman? Could it have been the Hetira, a super-secret organization pushing for a new Greek empire? Its name keeps cropping up, then fades away in a story that proceeds by fits and starts. There are more puzzling murders (an Albanian waterman, a Jewish moneylender) but they're over in seconds, leaving plenty of time for Yashim to indulge his first love, cooking, and Goodwin, a British historian, to fill us in on Istanbul's fabled past and exotic present. The large cast includes a Greek banking family and the English doctor who attended Byron at Missilonghi. Nobody is quite who they seem, there may or may not be valuable relics above ground or below (there are two scenes in Istanbul's maze of tunnels), and through it all glides Yashim, a gentle presence, who will fight only when he must. A mildly entertaining smoke-and-mirrors tale that teases more than it delivers. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter 1 The voice was low and rough and it came from behind as dusk fell. "Hey, George." It was the hour of the evening prayer, when you could no longer distinguish between a black thread and a white one, in ordinary light. George pulled the paring knife from his belt and sliced it through the air as he turned. All over Istanbul, muezzins in their minarets threw back their heads and began to chant. It was a good time to kick a man to death in the street. The grainy ululations swept in sobbing waves across the Golden Horn, where the Greek oarsmen on the gliding caïques were lighting their lamps. The notes of prayer rolled over the European town at Pera, a few lights wavering against the black ridge of Pera Hill. They skimmed the Bosphorus to Üsküdar, a smudge of purple fading back into the blackness of the mountains; and from there, on the Asian side, the mosques on the waterline echoed them back. A foot caught George in the small of his back. George's arms went wide and he stumbled toward a man who had a long face as if he were sorrowing for something. The sound swelled as muezzin after muezzin picked up the cry, weaving between the city's minarets the shimmer of a chant that expressed in a thousand ways the infirmity of man and the oneness of God. After that the knife wasn't any good. The call to prayer lasts about two and a half minutes, but for George it stopped sooner. The sad-faced man stooped and picked up the knife. It was very sharp, but its end was broken. It wasn't a knife for a fight. He threw it into the shadows. When the men had gone, a yellow dog came cautiously out of a nearby doorway. A second dog slunk forward on its belly and crouched close by, whining hopefully. Its tail thumped the ground. The first dog gave a low growl and showed its teeth. 2 Maximilien Lefèvre leaned over the rail and plugged his cheroot into the surf which seethed from the ship's hull. Seraglio Point was developing on the port bow, its trees still black and massy in the early light. As the ship rounded the point, revealing the Galata Tower on the heights of Pera, Lefèvre pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve to wipe his hands; his skin was clammy from the salt air. He looked up at the walls of the sultan's palace, patting the back of his neck with the handkerchief. There was an ancient column in the Fourth Court of the seraglio, topped by a Corinthian capital, which was sometimes visible from the sea, between the trees. It was the lingering relic of an acropolis that had stood there many centuries ago, when Byzantium was nothing but a colony of the Greeks: before it became a second Rome, before it became the navel of the world. Most people didn't know the column still existed; sometimes you saw it, sometimes not. The ship heaved, and Lefèvre gave a grunt of satisfaction. Slowly the Stamboul shore of the Golden Horn came into view, a procession of domes and minarets that surged forward, one by one, and then modestly retired. Below the domes, cascading down to the busy waterfront, the roofs of Istanbul were glowing red and orange in the first sunlight. This was the panorama that visitors always admired: Constantinople, Istanbul, city of patriarchs and sultans, the busy kaleidoscope of the gorgeous East, the pride of fifteen centuries. The disappointment came later. Lefèvre shrugged, lit another cheroot, and turned his attention to the deck. Four sailors in bare feet and dirty singlets were stooped by the anchor chain, awaiting their captain's signal. Others were clawing up the sails overhead. The helmsman eased the ship to port, closing in on the shore and the countercurrent that would bring them to a stop. The captain raised his hand, the chain ran out with the sound of cannon fire, the anchor bit, and the ship heaved slowly back against the chain. A boat was lowered, and Lefèvre descended into it after his trunk. At the Pera landing stage, a young Greek sailor jumped ashore with a stick to push back the crowd of touts. With his other hand he gestured for a tip. Lefèvre put a small coin into his hand and the young man spat. "City moneys," he said contemptuously. "City moneys very bad, Excellency." He kept his hand out. Lefèvre winked. "Piastres de Malta," he said quietly. "Oho!" The Greek squinted at the coin and his face brightened. "Ve-ery good." He redoubled his efforts with the touts. "These is robbers. You wants I finds you porter? Hotel? Very clean, Excellency." "No, thank you." "Bad mans here. You is first times in the city, Excellency?" "No." Lefèvre shook his head. The men on the landing stage fell silent. Some of them began to turn away. A man was approaching across the planked walk in green slippers. He was of medium build, with a head of snowy white hair. His eyes were piercingly blue. He wore baggy blue trousers, an open shirt of faded red cotton. "Doctor Lefèvre? Follow me, please." Over his shoulder he said: "Your trunk will be taken care of." Lefèvre gave a shrug. "À la prochaine." "Adio, m'sieur," the Greek sailor replied slowly. Excerpted from The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin. Copyright (c) 2007 by Jason Goodwin. Published in October 2007 by Sarah Crichton Books, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved. Excerpted from The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
