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Title details for The Sultan's Seal by Jenny White - Available

The Sultan's Seal

#1 in series

by Jenny White
Wanda McCaddon
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

The naked body of a young Englishwoman washes up in Istanbul wearing a pendant inscribed with the seal of the deposed sultan. The death resembles the unsolved murder of another Englishwoman, a governess, ten years before. A magistrate in the new secular courts, Kamil Pasha, sets out to find the killer, but his dispassionate belief in science and modernity is shaken by betrayal and widening danger. In a lush, mystical voice, a young Muslim woman recounts her own relationship with one of the dead women and with the suspected killer. Were these political murders involving the palace or crimes of personal passion?

Rich in sensuous detail, this novel of faith and desire brilliantly captures the political and social upheavals of the waning Ottoman Empire and the contradictory desires of the human soul, transporting listeners to another time and place.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Kamil Pasha

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 1, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781482172034
      • File size: 313817 KB
      • Duration: 10:53:47

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      THE SULTAN'S SEAL is a Byzantine (literally) tale of two murders in nineteenth-century Istanbul, linked by a mysterious pendant bearing the eponymous seal and associated with the victims, both young Englishwomen working as governesses in royal harems. From Nadia May we learn to pronounce it "hareem," and enjoy a great many other exotic pleasures. Her reading is witty and acute as always, but I had some trouble distinguishing by voice alone between two young female narrators, one the English ambassador's daughter, the other a highborn young woman of the city who knows more about the murders than she is telling. Nor is this the most persuasive whodunit, but its setting is fascinating, and it's a lot of fun. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 10, 2005
      Historical drama meets traditional murder mystery in this uneven but passionate debut. Istanbul in 1886 is in a state of enormous political and social unrest. Upper-class society has evolved a strange new stratum combining British expatriates, colonials and the clashing traditional and modern Turks, all struggling to find their place as the Ottoman Empire wanes. The citizens of Istanbul are leery of the bold and immodest behavior of the Englishwomen in their midst, but all are shocked when young Mary Dixon, governess at the imperial harem, is discovered brutally murdered. Few seem to have known the quiet, retiring Mary, but readers snatch a glimpse in the interwoven story of Jaanan, a young Turkish woman about to be forced into marriage to a man she hates and who has a strange connection to the murdered woman. The writing is lyrical and the characters enchanting, particularly Kamil Pasha, the region's magistrate, who finds himself entangled in the case. But the rich historical setting makes an uneasy match with the whodunit sleuthing; neither ends up being able to sustain the book, particularly given the placid pace of the investigation.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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