Lead Review

• Book: The Prophet Murders
• Location: Istanbul (Constantinople)
• Author: Mehmet Murat Somer

As well as being a crime novel of a particularly outrageous character (rather like the author, in fact), we have the added value here of being taken into the transvestite gay subculture of Istanbul, which will be something of a new experience for most crime readers. And Mehmet Murat Somer is the perfect tour guide to this unusual world (where the iconoclastic secular world rubs shoulders with an unbending, religious ethos); Somer’s skill as a writer has enabled him to create a particularly unusual protagonist. The author has said that he may be straying into pastures new with future books, but in the meantime this entertaining outing is more than enough to be going on with. –Barry Forshaw

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