Category Archives: Istanbul mysteries

The Magic Carpet Tour I

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“When you read a historical mystery by Jason Goodwin, you take a magic carpet ride to the most exotic place on earth.” Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times.

 

Tuesday

 

Girl at the Avis desk puts down the phone on a long customer service call, and addresses the queue.

A small delay at Heathrow has had a knock-on effect; we’re at Jackson 24 hours after leaving Dorset.

‘Dodge Avenger, right?’

Izzy frowns. He leans into my ear.

‘The Dodge Avenger came out bottom in a test of 48 production cars in America,’ he murmurs. ‘Lowest for reliability, safety and design.’

‘Is there a pick-up truck?’ I say bleakly.

‘Mmmm-mm.’ She opens a drawer and pokes through a heap of keys with glorious silver nails. ‘Y’all want a Ford Fandango, a Dodge Bushwhacker, a Toyota Trailblazer or a Chevvy Traverse?’

We get the Chevrolet, partly because it’s the only one I really heard her say and partly because it has Texas plates and needs to go home.

In the parking lot it looks like a merger between a Samurai helmet and a London bus. I am awed, and dwarfed, by its huge wheels. We climb in sleepily, and when I turn the key the dashboard, the mirrors, the radios and consoles and parts of the ceiling burst into life, sparkling in thousands of tiny neon pin-pricks in the dark.

Izzy, who has never been to America or deciphered a Mississippi roadsign in his life, sees to it that we don’t manage to get lost, in spite of my best efforts.

 

 

An Evil Eye – the theme tune?

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A beautiful little mazurka by Chopin plays a role in An Evil Eye, and readers might like to hear it.

 

Frederic Chopin, by Delacroix

This is it being played by Cortot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2wgQrO-E1U&feature=related

In An Evil Eye, it is of course played by Palewski, the Polish ambassador, on his violin; and later in the novel he hears it being whistled. Be warned – it’s the kind of tune that goes on a loop in your head all day.

You can get a copy of An Evil Eye here:

http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Eye-Novel-Jason-Goodwin/dp/0374110409/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299324263&sr=1-1

Starred review for An Evil Eye

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Lovely to have a great review in Publisher’s Weekly – An Evil Eye is ‘masterful’, no less!

An Evil Eye
Jason Goodwin, FSG/Sarah Crichton, $26 (304p) ISBN 978-0-374-11040-6

Edgar-winner Goodwin’s masterful fourth mystery thriller set in Istanbul under the Ottoman Turks (after The Bellini Card) finds his series hero, the eunuch Yashim, attempting to navigate treacherous political shoals following the death of Sultan Mahmut II in 1840. International pressures heighten the uncertainty surrounding the empire’s direction under Mahmut’s youthful successor. In this tense climate, Yashim looks into the killing of an unknown man dumped in a Christian monastery’s cistern. A flap of skin cut from the body bearing a death’s-head brand, an item that someone tries to take from Yashim at gunpoint, may point to a Russian connection to the murder. While Goodwin excels at plotting, the book’s main strength lies in the assured depiction of a nation restrained by a corrupt leadership far removed from the old traditions of transparency and justice. The details of how Yashim prepares meals may amuse Robert Parker fans. (Apr.)

Permalink: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-374-11040-6 (978-0-374-11040-6)

 

Greek fisherman’s stew: kakavia

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In An Evil Eye, the fourth Yashim mystery, Yashim and his friend Palewski are invited to share a meal with some Greek fishermen. I’ve promised to give the recipe, so here it is. It contains one ingredient that sparks off a considerable debate about whether it is good for you, or not. I leave it to you to guess which one!

The main thing about making kakavia is to stay relaxed. You’ll make a fish stock using heads and bones (fishmongers call them ‘frames’, and give them away), a sofrito as a base, and then put in the fish to cook. If you like mussels, for instance, use them too. It’s catch-of-the-day stuff,nothing set in stone, but don’t use oily fish like salmon or mackerel.

The stock – easy. Just simmer a bunch of heads and bones in a pint or two of water, along with a pinch of salt, a few peppercorns and a bayleaf.

That’ll take about half an hour, so now you can get the sofrito underway. This is my favourite bit, because you can use your imagination to throw in anything you like, if you think it will be tasty – chilli if you want, chopped leek maybe, garlic (I would), and thyme. A few sliced potatoes are good – put them in as soon as the onion begins to soften. It’s really useful to have a heavy-bottomed pan, like a casserole, to take this part slowly – melt two or three sliced onions in olive oil until they turn clear, even a bit sticky, and then stir in a few chopped tomatoes, and simmer it down. I believe that a high-sided pan is best for this. So does Yashim.

Look to your fish. You might have 2-3 lbs (a generous kilo) of mullet, cod, hake, bass in any combination, but try to keep a mix of fish; have it filleted – skinned, too, if you like – and keep the pieces at least an inch square, or bigger.

When the stock is done, strain it into the sofritto – all hissing steam and then a comfortable bubble. Use as much stock as you want, depending how soupy you’d like this kakavia to be. I make it thick, so that it can be soaked up with bread, because the children seem to weary of eating soup. Not Yashim’s problem, of course.

Now stir the fish pieces into the stewing pan and simmer them for about ten minutes, till done but not collapsing. Mussels five minutes before the end, if you use them.

Good bread, squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper on the table.

Καλή σας όρεξη! Bon appetit…

The Magic Carpet Tour 1

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Calling all readers in the USA – and their friends and relations, and the relations and friends and acquaintances of their friends &c.

“When you read a historical mystery by Jason Goodwin, you take a magic carpet ride to the most exotic place on earth.” So Marilyn Stasio wrote sweetly in The New York Times.

Well, in April I’m going to take a Magic Carpet ride myself, to the exotic regions of America’s South and West, talking and signing and generally spouting in bookstores and radio stations, and I’d like to meet everyone I can while I’m there. It’s to coincide with the publication of An Evil Eye (Yashim no. 4) but I’m going to be travelling with my son, Izzy, on his first big away and the first time in America. Being 17 and a guitar and fiddle boy, he’s got his own ideas about, say, Jackson, Mississippi. I think: Old Hickory. He thinks: Robert Johnson. It will be fun.

Jackson (the 6th), then Oxford, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama, on the 8th; New Orleans next day. Then – and this is the great bit, because we’re driving much of it – we’ll do a Thelma and Louise to reach Austin around the 12th. Houston on the 15th, then San Diego, LA a while, San Fransisco on the 21st, where we’ll be a few days, before Portland, Oregon and Powell’s Bookstore on the 26th.

The bookstore readings should be lively: to judge from past appearances it’ll be conversation which might roam over history v historical fiction, the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East, novel-writing, characters… and this time a few thoughts on the blues, jazz,  and where to find the best grub in the South.

See you there!

Yashim’s Christmas

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I don’t imagine that Yashim, the Ottoman investigator, has a Christmas list.

His more devout Greek friends in Istanbul will fast through Advent: even George the greengrocer keeps a three day fast. Christmas is not a time of gifts for them – that belongs to the New Year, St Basil’s Day, when Christ was circumcised. Then a child – usually a boy – first foots his friends and relatives, bringing a ‘dog onion’ to each house. He goes away with a few coins.

Ambassador Palewski celebrates Christmas in his own way, naturally. On Christmas day he eats only what has been prepared the day before, and he lays an extra place on a white tablecloth in case someone turns up unexpectedly. That person is often Yashim. Under the tablecloth he puts straw. Otherwise, he watches the weather, according to the Polish tradition that the weather at Christmas foretells the pattern for the coming year. Once he invited Marta, his housekeeper, to pick a straw from under the tablecloth. A green straw for marriage, a yellow straw for spinsterhood, and a withered straw for more waiting; the short straw indicates an early grave. Inevitably the experiment led to misunderstanding, and tears.

Yashim visits the local orthodox church on Christmas Eve and lights a candle in memory of his Greek mother.

There’s a little more about her in An Evil Eye, which comes out this Summer.

US and Canadian reviews

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In The Globe & Mail, Margaret Cannon writes:

 Jason Goodwin won an Edgar for The Janissary Tree, his first novel set in 19th-century Istanbul, featuring the eunuch, cook and investigator Yashim. It was a brilliant debut, followed by the equally fine The Snake Stone, but in The Bellini Card, Goodwin and Yashim really hit their stride.

There’s a sultan and a Bellini portrait, and the plot takes Yashim and his friend Palewski to Venice in all its slightly sultry, slightly tawdry glory. There is a murder, of course, and the suspects include faded aristocrats and a mysterious and very beautiful contessa. If you want to completely escape the chilly, dreary modern world, this is the book to take you away.

New in – this from Carol Memmott writing in USA Today:

Jason Goodwin’s series starring a eunuch detective serving the Ottoman Empire’s sultan is as much literary novel and historical fiction as it is a mystery. In The Bellini Card: Investigator Yashim Goes to Venice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 288 pp., $25), the eunuch Yashim and his friend Stanislaw Palewski, a Polish diplomat, tackle the assignment of discovering whether a rumored portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror by the painter Gentile Bellini exists and, if so, to buy it for the sultan. The investigation takes these clever, endearing detectives to Venice, where lucky readers are transported to a fascinating period in Venetian history.

And here’s the review from National Geographic’s Traveler magazine: 

A Venetian Journey by Don George

Bringing a contemporary city to life in words is an extraordinary enough challenge. But bringing a mid-19th-century city to life is infinitely more challenging. Edgar Award-winning mystery writer Jason Goodwin overcomes the challenge with vigor and grace in The Bellini Card, his third in a series of historical mysteries featuring the eunuch investigator Yashim, who serves the Ottoman court in 19th-century Istanbul. In this new book Yashim journeys to Venice at the behest of the new sultan to search for a legendary portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror, painted by Gentile Bellini. From its fast-paced dialogue to its interlacing political and social intrigues to its atmospheric depictions of Venetian life, The Bellini Card presents a riveting and revealing journey in time and space.

 

The Sand-Reckoner’s Diagram

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For Patty and others, who’d like to follow the action more closely…

This diagram, which figures so prominently in The Bellini Card, is an eight-pointed star inside a square. The above illustration comes from a Japanese website and it is, as far as  know, the only illustration of the Sand-Reckoner’s diagram online.

The idea that it was used as a fencing diagram, governing positions and strokes, was put to me in Hampshire some years ago. It has been on my mind ever since, not least because of its delightful name:  I was glad to unpack it for The BelliniCard.