Belshazzar's Daughter (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries) (Inspectr Ikmen) [Paperback]

Barbara Nadel (Author)

Book Description

Series: Inspectr Ikmen | Publication Date: October 15, 2006

Tourist brochures present Instanbul as a glamorous, modern city, but the brochures don't make much mention of Balat, a decrepit neighborhood of narrow, twisting alleys and crumbling tenements. Until recently it was home to Leonid Meyer, a reclusive elderly Jew who, like many of his neighbors, came here long ago to escape one of Europe's various bloodbaths. But Meyer's refuge ultimately became his coffin, the carnage crowned with a gigantic swastika. A racit murder? Inspector Ikmen has his doubts, and begins tracking down the few people who might have known the old man, including a faded prostitute, a shadowy family of Russian emigres, a dispairing rabbi, and a high-strung young Englishman in the throes of erotic obsession. The first in a stunningly atmospheric new series from a writer who has deservedly been compared with Michael Dibdin and Donna Leon.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British author Nadel's deep passion for Turkish culture and her intimate knowledge of that land come through vividly in this riveting crime drama set in present-day Istanbul, but with roots in two of the last century's epic bloodbaths. Police Inspector Aetin Ikmen, alcoholic, chain-smoking, but somehow endearing, looks into the brutal murder and disfigurement of an aged Jewish immigrant that appears to have neo-Nazi implications. With his youthful colleague Mehmet Suleyman in tow, Ikmen leads us through the back alleys, brothels and barrooms of the city's roughest neighborhoods in an absorbing investigation that involves suspects of many nationalities and mental states, each suffering from a different form of madness or obsession. Midway through their complicated inquiry, Ikmen declares that the case is like reconstructing "a shattered mirror" whose pieces have flown off in many different directions. With rapid scene shifts and a constantly changing cast of characters, that mirror is gradually pieced back together to provide a glimpse of the gory end of the tsarist regime in Russia nearly a century ago, and the ongoing terrors of those who survived the carnage only to relive it in their minds. Stunning final twists in this disturbing tale suggest that history's cycles of violence and evil will continue unabated. FYI: This is the author's first book to be published in the U.S.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Istanbul police inspector Cetin Ikmen, never without his brandy and cigarettes, has his hands full when an old man turns up dead in Balat, the rundown Jewish quarter of the city. With his handsome partner, Suleyman; medical examiner Dr. Sarkissian; and skirt-chasing officer Cohen offering assistance, Ikmen begins investigating the puzzling crime. He discovers a strange group of expatriate suspects: a bored, lovesick Englishman teaching at a language school; an old German textile manufacturer with Nazi sympathies; and an odd Russian family stuck in the prerevolutionary past. As the team slowly unravels the complex chain of events that led to the victim's demise, Ikmen's wife gives birth to their ninth child, and Suleyman tries to find the courage to keep his mother from arranging an unwanted marriage. Nadel's first novel is a real treat. The city of Istanbul provides a rich background for an engaging plot and a cast of remarkably well developed, colorful characters. Add Inspector Ikmen and his motley crew to the growing list of outstanding fictional cops plying their trades across all parts of Europe and Asia, which have become hotbeds of police procedural excellence. Barbara Bibel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Felony & Mayhem; 1st edition (October 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933397497
• ISBN-13: 978-1933397498
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #474,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, June 23, 2004

By 

saliero (NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Belshazzar's Daughter: A Novel of Istanbul (Inspector Cetin Ikmen, 1) (Hardcover)

Nadel has written an excellent police procedural, and introduced an engaging cast of regular characters in this first Inspector Ikmen book.

More than that, she writes evocatively of Istanbul - its physical nature and social life, and the diverse people who make it their home - from 500 years of Jewish descent seeking asylum to latter day English language teachers looking for refuge in their own way.

I have lived in Istanbul myself amongst the foreign teacher expat community, and Nadel has captured this aspect perfectly. Some of the people fleeing their personal demons. She writes most sympathetically of those who have sought safe harbour from systemic persecution.

Nadel has successfully managed to weave an engaging modern-day crime novel together with a strong sense of place and with a fascinating historical background. Along the way, we learn to care about the characters who populate the series, most especially Ikmen's family.

I thoroughly recommend this book - all the elements have been 'got right' - plot, characterisation and location for a thoroughly diverting read.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Murder and madness in Istanbul., April 13, 2004

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Belshazzar's Daughter: A Novel of Istanbul (Inspector Cetin Ikmen, 1) (Hardcover)

Barbara Nadel's novel, "Belshazzar's Daughter," has an intriguing premise. Cetin Ikmen, a chain-smoking and hard-drinking detective on the Istanbul police force, is investigating the murder and mutilation of an elderly Jewish man named Leonid Meyer. Someone used acid to torture Meyer and then painted a swastika on a wall near the corpse. Is this heinous act the work of a right-wing anti-Semite or is there a less obvious motive?

Nadel, who according to the book jacket has visited Turkey frequently, makes good use of her exotic locale to lend a touch of originality to what is essentially an ordinary whodunit. Ikmen and his partner Suleyman interview everyone who knew Meyer, and they look into the victim's past to see if it might shed light on who hated him enough to kill him so brutally. The colorful cast of characters includes the unlucky Robert Cornelius, a depressed British expatriate with a checkered past, a beautiful temptress named Natalia, and Natalia's grandmother, Maria Gulcu, a strange woman who knows a great deal more about Meyer's death than she's willing to reveal. There is also Reinhold Smits, a known Nazi sympathizer who once employed Meyer and then summarily dismissed him. Which of these suspects holds the key to the mystery?

As the story unfolds, it becomes more and more convoluted and less credible, and the ending of "Belshazzar's Daughter" is way over the top. I liked the characters and the setting, but the plot was not well-developed and convincing enough to make this novel work for me.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The first of the Inspector Ikmen novels--promising great things to come, June 5, 2006

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Belshazzar's Daughter: A Novel of Istanbul (Inspector Cetin Ikmen, 1) (Hardcover)

Barbara Nadel's Ispector Ikmen mysteries set in Istanbul have been compared favorably to Donna Leon's Venice-set mysteries, but the Nadel series may actually be even superior given her superb use of characterization. Her first work in the series, BELSHAZZAR'S DAUGHTER, shows already her gifts at creating a good mystery and fine characters, but she takes everything a bit too far over the top--not only does the solution to the central crime (the murder of a Russian Jewish expatriate by buldgeoning and pouring acid down his throat, with a swastika painted on the nearby wall in his blood) tie directly to one of the most notorious historical crimes in early twentieth-century Europe, but Nadel also has to throw in Ikmen's cross-dressing precognitive cousin who scries the novel's overdramatic conclusion in a bowl of oil--it's just too much. But the great characters of the series are all already here, including Ikmen's handsome and mother-dominated colleague Suleiman, his perpetually pregnant wife Fatma, his pushy father, and the chainsmoking, brandy-swilling Ikmen himself, a superbly drawn detective figure. There are better Ikmen novels to come, but this is a very solid start to the series.