Book Review of Joseph Kanon's Istanbul Passage

Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon

Leon Bauer is, or appears to be, just an agent for American tobacco interests in Turkey. Rejected for military service, he's spent several years in Istanbul, learning the language and customs and steeping himself in the beautiful city that sits between East and West. With his German refugee wife, Anna, he has made Istanbul his home. Even after World War II ends, he has no desire to return to the United States.

Leon's other life is on the fringes of the intelligence community. He does occasional side jobs, mostly package deliveries, for a friend at the U.S. consulate. But when he gets an assignment to pick up a human package from a fishing boat one night, the job goes very wrong. Now, Leon has left the fringes of the murky world of espionage and is left stranded in its dangerous center, not knowing whom he can trust, and improvising to complete his task on his own.

It turns out that Leon has a talent for acting as a lone agent, keeping his own counsel and observing everyone in his life to try to figure out what went wrong at the pickup, who might have been involved, and whom they might represent; all while he's working hard to try to figure out how to get Alexei, his human package, out of Turkey. Now, he looks at everyone differently. Might there be a traitor at the consulate? Is an old friend a Russian agent? What about the hostess whose parties bring together people from all countries and interests; the guy who forges documents; the police investigator; Altan, the scrupulously-polite-but-threatening commander from Turkey's secret police; and even those closest to Leon?

Leon may be new to the ruthless world of the secret agent, but he is soon drawn into its moral ambiguities and compromises; using friends, even when it places them in danger and even as he learns how unworthy Alexei is of his help.

Joseph Kanon excels at drawing a picture of the immediate postwar period. Europe's cities are in ruins, loyalties are in flux, power is shifting and nobody knows what the new world will look like. He's done it before in his novels, especially in The Alibi and The Good German, probably the novels most similar to Istanbul Passage. Though the mood may be the same, this is a different location, and one that adds a lot to the story. Istanbul has always been a divided city; East and West, Muslim, Christian, Jewish. In the 20th century no longer a world power, it sat uneasily between Germany and Russia during the war, and now it must walk a tightrope between the new powers, Russia and the United States. Istanbul is the perfect setting for this story, and Kanon brings it alive, from the street bazaars to the bathhouses, the mosques, the back streets, the cafés where people sip tea from tulip glasses, the yalis (villas) on the waterfront, and the mysteriously beautiful and dangerous Bosphorus River.

The title, Istanbul Passage, is well chosen. It can refer to Leon's passage from almost an errand boy to a rogue agent, from a black-and-white moralist to somebody who reluctantly, and to his chagrin, learns from Alexei and Altan what it takes to survive when you're on your own. Or the title may refer to Istanbul's history as a place where people are bought, sold and smuggled. Throughout the war and afterward, the city served as a passage for refugees, especially Jewish refugees, to escape to a new life. And that Jewish-refugee theme forms a part of this story as well.

This is not a shoot-'em-up, action-packed thriller, but one that puts you into its time and place, and in the mind of a man trying to figure out where his loyalties lie within it, and what choice to make when all the alternatives are bad.

Note: Istanbul Passage was published by Atria Books in May 2012. A version of this review appears on the Amazon product page, under my Amazon user name.

The Sultan's Eunuch

Yashim the Eunuch, lala (trusted advisor or protector) to Sultan Mahmud II, is the unusual protagonist in historian Jason Goodwin's The Janissary Tree. The book is set in 1836, 10 years after the Sultan had disbanded his rebellious Janissaries and executed their leaders, and the Ottoman Empire was beginning to crumble.

The Janissaries had been the sultan's elite forces and personal guards for almost five hundred years but, like the infamous Roman Praetorian Guard, came eventually to wield enough power to become kingmakers––and breakers––themselves. The force was originally made up of young Christian sons from territories the Ottoman Empire had conquered. The boys were taken forcibly from their families, converted to Islam, and trained in warfare. They were a fanatical and ferocious band of brothers, and enough of them had survived the purge to be a matter of concern for Mahmud, who is about to issue what he knows will be a wildly unpopular edict modernizing the political structure of the entire Ottoman Empire.

The Sultan, a forward-thinking half-European man, had replaced his faithless Janissaries with a modern Western-style Guard after his father and other family members were butchered during the bloody rebellion. He had survived only because his mother, the Valide Sultan, had hidden him in her dirty laundry basket and defied the scimitar-wielding murderers who sought him.

The Valide herself has a remarkable history straight out of a Victorian gothic romance. A beautiful young French woman from Martinique, she was kidnapped by pirates and sold into the Sultan's harem on her way to France. A young friend who followed on a later ship made the trip safely, and eventually became Napoleon Bonaparte's beloved Empress Josephine. These two powerful women maintained the childhood friendship throughout their lives, despite the Valide's enforced seclusion.

Yashim the Eunuch is a bit of a mystery as well. He had come to Istanbul as an already-castrated secretary to a Greek functionary and merchant prince. After saving the lives of the women in the merchant's family during the Janissary uprising, he came to the attention of the Sultan, who found his skills and wit useful. Unlike most members of the Court, he lives outside the Topkapi Palace and carefully avoids its vicious internal politics although, as a technical neuter, he can go anywhere, even into the Sultan's harem.

You might not expect much from a eunuch in the bedroom, but a humorously steamy scene between Yashim and the wife of the Russian ambassador in whose bedroom he had hidden left me wondering a bit. While neither knew the word for "castrati" in the other's language, they managed to come to terms that were apparently quite gratifying to both parties. As the author mentions elsewhere in the book, but only partially explains, there are different levels of castration.

As the book opens, Yashim is sent for by three very important people. The Seraskier, commander of the Sultan's new guards, has inopportunely lost four of his best officers, last seen going out for dinner and a night on the town. Since a major demonstration of the newly-modernized army is planned in conjunction with the publication of the earthshaking new edict the following week, time is tight to find the missing men.

The Sultan, meanwhile, demands that Yashim find the strangler of the young houri selected to spend the night with him. While he had never even seen the girl, murder in the sultan's own harem was unthinkable. And the Valide Sultan threatens to never lend Yashim another of her French novels unless he can recover her missing priceless jewels, a gift from the Emperor Napoleon and his wife Josephine.

The solution of these puzzles will carry Yashim through all levels of society, from the ceremonial cauldrons of the Soup Makers' Guild to the Russian Embassy, and the stinking toxic vats of the leather manufacturers to the inner recesses of the harem.

While Yashim eventually puts all of the pieces together, this historical mystery is so replete with such fabulous characters and vignettes of the secretive society behind the silken veil that it reads more like Tales from the Thousand and One Nights than a straightforward mystery novel. Even Yashim's best friend and sidekick, the Polish Ambassador, has a complicated story and ambiguous position.

The fairly weak plot in this Edgar-winning first novel is completely overwhelmed by the characters and exotic setting, but the bits of Ottoman history and culture the reader is spoon fed (from a silver jewel-encrusted spoon!) and the fantastic characters make this a wonderful escape. I read it twice; first for the story and its solution, then again more slowly to revel in the moods and foods, smells and sounds of the exotic city and tumultuous times the author describes so eloquently. The Snake Stone, second in the series, is in my TBR pile awaiting my future wish for another extraordinary travel experience in space and time.

Talking Turkey

Have you had your fill of that feathered fowl with the wattle, with white meat, dark meat and giblets, but are now looking forward to a few days of sandwiches, soup and croquettes made from the same bird? Let's talk about a different kind of Turkey, the crossroads of Europe and Asia kind.

Blue Mosque

I have been sampling a variety of Turkish delights tinged by the dark side. Almost all the authors I will mention today use Istanbul for their backdrops. There is no place quite as exotic, mysterious, beautiful and complex. The ageless Bosphorus divides the city, as magnificent palaces like Topkapi and Tekfur capture the eye, and the ultimate in mosques like the Blue Mosque and the Sultan Ahmet lift the spirits.

Topkapi Palace

Each of these writers brings a different part of the city to life. My favorite writer whose stories are based in Turkey is Barbara Nadel. Her mysteries feature themes that focus on the multiculturalism  and the history of the area. Police Inspector Çetin İkmen of the Istanbul police is the head of the serious crime squad of Istanbul. He is of mixed background and it is hard to say what religion he practices, if any. His close subordinate, Mehmet Süleyman, is Muslim. Another associate on his squad, Balthazar Cohen, is Jewish. The crimes İkmen gets involved in cross many barriers as well. İkmen lives for his work and in Arabesk he complains that "I have this unpleasant feeling that when I don't work I actually cease to exist." He is on an enforced leave of absence while on sick leave due his ulcer problem. His son Sihan encourages him to read Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book, but he prefers reality to fiction.

Arabesque Pattern

Here in Arabesk, Nadel looks at this society that has existed for so many centuries and that still reflects the beliefs and cultures of the many invaders who have ruled for a while until they were replaced by other invaders. The Hittites, the Persians, the Romans, the Greeks and, finally, the Ottomans have left their mark on this part of the world. The title Arabesk comes from the popular music that is a blend of traditional Turkish music and ornate Egyptian laments. It has been called the "music of the slums." Most of its performers, many of whom come from the countryside, often have painful memories of poverty among the shanty districts and cheap tower blocks where the peasants live when they come to the city to work. The melodies are mournful as well as critical of the plight of the poor. Islam forbids the use of the human form in art, so in most art forms there are patterned designs that repeat almost infinitely. Mistakes are deliberately made to show that humans err. Arabesk is a story of errors that are repeated, leading to murder. The murder investigation itself is tortuous and also repetitive, but finally leads to a satisfying conclusion.

Underground Cistern

In Nadel's Harem there is much going on below the surface, both literally as well as figuratively. The sultans of yore had buried a system of canals and tunnels below the street surfaces so that they could travel from one part of the city to another in safety and secrecy. Many of these cisterns were in disrepair and close by crumbled walls that had been helped along in their disintegration by the terrible earthquake of 1999. One of the secrets in this exotic city is the use of young girls as odalisques–or female slaves–who fulfill secret desires for people of high rank. In this mystery, Nadel blends the past with the present subtly and beautifully. There are 13 books in this series, all with unusual cases in unusual places and I am making my way through them slowly because I enjoy them so much.

Lighter and frothier than these are the Hop-Çiki-Yaya Thrillers series by Mehmet Murat Somer. This phrase is used in comedy shows to mean gay. This series begins with The Prophet Murders. The protagonist is an unnamed individual who is referred to by several names including sweetie, "abla," meaning elder sister, hubby and baby. He/she calls herself a trannie (transvestite) and she is much more than that. She is a man or a woman as circumstance demands. She does martial arts, owns a nightclub, is a serious computer hacker and is apparently quite attractive, modeling herself after Audrey Hepburn. She gets into the murder business when she becomes concerned about the recent deaths of other transvestites in the community who are being marginalized because of who they are. The book is an education about the lifestyle, the rules of the community, and the ins and outs of the hierarchy of power in the transvestite community of Turkey–which probably isn't that different from anywhere else.

There are seven books in the series but only three have been translated so far. The tone is campy, but not overly so because our girl is serious and very real.

Another different taste of Turkey is from the perspective of a working woman in Istanbul. The novel is Hotel Bosphorus by Esmahan Aykol. But it is as unlike my working life as a doughnut compared to baklava. Kati Herschel is a German whose parents came to Turkey when the Nazis came to power. Her father was Jewish lawyer. She spent the first seven years of her life there before her parents returned home. She never felt at home in Germany, so she moved back to Istanbul and, after trying out several jobs, she opened the only crime bookstore in the city. She considers herself an İstanbullu despite the fact the fact that although she carries a Turkish passport and speaks excellent Turkish, the Turks consider her German. Her personal habits are quite un-Turkish in many ways: her friends consider her stingy because she offers them used teabags for tea, she walks rather than take a taxi, and turns lights off the minute she leaves the room. On the other hand, she is a smiley person and the Turks feels that that is really why she left Germany, because a cheerful person would feel out of place there.

One fine spring day, Petra, a friend of Kati's from Germany who is now a film star, arrives in town and gets reacquainted with her friend, but before the ice has settled in their drinks a man associated with the film is murdered. Kati has little faith in police of any persuasion and immediately decides that she'd better figure this thing out in order to help Petra. This story is written in a breezy, chatty fashion with asides to the reader. As Kati pursues clues across the Bosphorus, we learn more about the city and the past than the murder, but in the same way that she runs her store–and that is by the seat of her pants–Kati finds the answers she is looking for.

Exchanging sweet for sour, we leave Turkey for Germany, where Jakob Arjouni introduces us to curmudgeonly private eye, Kemal Kayankaya. He is Kati’s polar opposite. He is Turkish, but he was raised in Germany, holds a German passport, speaks German fluently but not Turkish. Jakob has too much experience of German resentment against foreigners. In the 1960s, Germany was having an economic resurgence and needed workers. A guest-worker agreement was signed with Turkey in 1961; Turks became the largest group of immigrant workers, and rather than going back home after 10 or 15 years, the workers stayed. Many of these immigrants do not speak German and prejudice is rampant. Kemal has his own attitudes about the local populace, so there is a bit of tit-for-tat going on as he describes Germans and, on one occasion, American tourists with far-from-flattering candor.

In Happy Birthday, Turk!, Kemal Kayankaya is asked to investigate the death of a Turkish worker, Ahmed Hamul, who was murdered in the red-light district of Frankfurt. Ahmed's family has asked Kemal for help; they know the police won't work too hard on the case. Kemal doesn’t have much training, but in the end he does have what it takes–which is the ability to survive multiple serious beatings in the course of his days on the job. Reasonable health care is a boon for Kemal. Arjouni's books are quite popular in Germany; go figure! I liked this Kemal guy and have the next book in the series on tap: One Man, One Murder.

I did read The Black Book, by Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, after it was recommended in Arabesk. It took me a long time to get through and there are no words for my reading experience. I have been assured that I will get over it without help from pharmaceuticals.