Deadly Web by
Barbara Nadel
hbk out January 05
Published by Headline
at £18.99
A new story in the series about a Turkish detective, Cetin Ikmen and his
police associates. Authentic in the sights and sounds of Istanbul, the
author has written another unusual tale about an up-to-date Turkey on the
brink of being involved in the Iraqi conflict, though that plays no part in
the story.
It is a complex tale of a series of murders of young girls, who are killed
during bizarre sexual acts and obviously some ritual element is involved.
Ikmen's colleague Mehmet Suleyman has troubles of his own, as his wife
has left him after discovering that he went with a whore and is waiting for
the result of his HIV test. Because of the ritualistic overtones, Ikmen
consults Max, an old British friend who keeps a fringe bookshop and is
immersed in magic, specifically Kabbalah, an ancient system derived
from Hebrew writings. However, Max vanishes and suspicion increases
that he might himself be involved in the killings.
The book is replete with descriptions of the Gothic cult that seems to
have caught the imagination of the youth of Istanbul, as well much detail
about magical and Satanistic cults, which these days seem to be
disseminated largely through the Internet. Even so, this is still very much
a police-based 'whodunit'. The author gives a map, a glossary, notes on
the Turkish Republic, Kabbalah and more than two pages of help on the
pronunciation of Turkish.
My main problem with the book was not the writing, which is excellent,
nor the plot, but the difficulty of remembering the names of the many
characters, as I was quite unable to retain their identities because of the
strange spellings which I kept attempting to pronounce, even though the
book begins with a long List of Characters. I had to keep endlessly turning
back to this to refresh my mind as to who-was-who and this distracted me
from a smooth read of the story.
Apart from this, it is an interesting and instructive book, though a bit
ghoulish in places.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Deadly Web by
Barbara Nadel
