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WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL This first book in the Investigator Yashim series is a richly entertaining tale, full of exotic history and intrigue, introduces Investigator Yashim: In 1830s Istanbul, an extra-ordinary hero tackles an extraordinary plot that threatens to topple the Ottoman Empire It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the Sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Lastname, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world. You see, Yashim is a eunuch. He leads us into the palace's luxurious seraglios and Istanbul's teeming streets, and leans on the wisdom of a dyspeptic Polish ambassador, a transsexual dancer, and a Creole-born queen mother. And he introduces us to the Janissaries. For 400 years, they were the empire's elite soldiers, but they grew too powerful, and ten years ago, the Sultan had them crushed. Are the Janissaries staging a brutal comeback?
‘Perhaps the most readable history ever written’ Time Out Lords of the Horizons charts the Ottoman Empire's swirling epic history; dramatic — detailed and alive — a journey, and a world all in one. The Ottoman Empire has long exerted a strong pull on Western minds and hearts. For over six hundred years the Empire swelled and declined; rising from a dusty fiefdom in the foothills of Anatolia to a power which ruled over the Danube and the Euphrates with the richest court in Europe. But its decline was prodigious, protracted, and total. ‘A fascinating read...a perfect companion for anyone who visits Turkey and wants to make sense of it’ The Times
Lefèvre, a French archaeologist, has arrived in Istanbul determined to uncover a lost Byzantine treasure. Yashim is commissioned to find out more about him. But when Lefèvre's mutilated body is discovered outside the French embassy, it turns out that there is only one suspect: Yashim himself. Once again, Yashim finds himself in a race against time to find the startling truth behind a shadowy secret society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, caught in a deadly game deep beneath the city streets, a place where the stakes are high - and betrayal is death.
Charged by the Sultan to find a stolen painting by Bellini, Yashim the detective enlists the help of his friend Palewski, the Polish Ambassador, and goes undercover. Venice in 1840 is a city of empty palazzos and silent canals, and Palewski starts to mingle with Venetian dealers - but when two bodies turn up in the canal, he realises that art in Venice is a deadly business, and it is up to Yashim to attempt to rescue his intrepid friend from forces bigger than they had ever imagined . . .
"Inspired by Jason Goodwin's bestselling mystery novels, Yashim Cooks Istanbul evokes the colors and flavours of the Ottoman world, with recipes from simple meze and vegetable dishes to meat, fish, and puddings."--Back cover.
When the body of a Russian agent is found down a monastery well, Yashim knows exactly who to blame. Fevzi Ahmet Pasha, commander of the Ottoman fleet. Years ago, when Yashim first entered the sultan's service, Fevzi Ahmet was his mentor. Ruthless, cruel, and - in Yashim's eyes - ultimately ineffective, he is the only man who makes him afraid. And now Yashim must confront the secret that Fevzi Pasha has been keeping all these years, a secret whose roots lie deep in the tortured atmosphere of the sultan's harem, where normal rules are suspended, and women can simply disappear. Once again, Yashim and his friends encounter treachery and politics, played out against the backdrop of 1840s Istanbul.
In nineteenth-century Istanbul, a Polish prince has been kidnapped. His assassination has been bungled and his captors have taken him to an unused farmhouse. Little do they realize that their revolutionary cell has been penetrated by their enemies, who use the code name La Piuma (the Feather). Yashim is convinced that the prince is alive. But he has no idea where, or who La Piuma is - and has become dangerously distracted by falling in love. As he draws closer to the prince's whereabouts and to the true identity of La Piuma, Yashim finds himself in the most treacherous situation of his career: can he rescue the prince along with his romantic dreams? Jason Goodwin's bestselling 'Yashim' series has been published across the globe and received huge critical acclaim. In The Baklava Club, Goodwin takes Yashim on an adventure like no other, through the stylish, sensual world of Ottoman Istanbul.
The story of the American dollar is the story of America itself, and in Greenback, Jason Goodwin tells the tale of how the country made the dollar and how the dollar helped make the country. Exploring everything from the meaning of the symbols on each greenback to how money works; from how it emerged out of a war to why it is now accepted everywhere, Goodwin packs his book with anecdotes, facts and figures, and the heroes and villains who in their own way made the dollar the most prevalent and sought after man-made object in the world today.
Jason Goodwin takes the reader on an adventurous journey through the serpentine paths of the tea trade-from China to India to London. Evoking both past and present in this lively and intriguing traveler's journal, he traces the development of the tea trade from its origins in Canton factories through the Opium Wars and the settlement of British India. His travels take him from the lost European cities of the China coast to inland China, to Calcutta, to India's high tea gardens in Bohea and Darjeeling. Full of historical and personal detail, A Time for Tea is highly informative, funny, and original. This is more than a travelogue, it is the soul of economic development.
Elisha Graves Otis invented the safe elevator almost by accident. In doing so he made possible the construction of the skyscraper and laid the technical foundation for dynamic urban centers around the world.