An Evil Eye

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When the body of a Russian agent is found down a monastery well, Yashim knows exactly who to blame. Fevzi Ahmet Pasha, commander of the Ottoman fleet. Years ago, when Yashim first entered the sultan’s service, Fevzi Ahmet was his mentor. Ruthless, cruel, and - in Yashim’s eyes - ultimately ineffective, he is the only man who makes him afraid. And now Yashim must confront the secret that Fevzi Pasha has been keeping all these years, a secret whose roots lie deep in the tortured atmosphere of the sultan’s harem, where normal rules are suspended and women can simply disappear. Once again, Yashim and his friends encounter treachery and politics, played out against the backdrop of 1840s Istanbul.

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Jason Goodwin studied Byzantine history at Cambridge University. Fifteen years ago, following the success of The Gunpowder Gardens: Travels in China and India in Search of Tea, he made a six-month pilgrimage across Eastern Europe to Istanbul, a journey recounted in On Foot to the Golden Horn, which won the John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize in 1993. Intrigued by the enduring influence of the Ottoman Turks on Eastern Europe, Jason went on to research and write Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire. Jan Morris called it ‘a high-octane work of art’, and the New York Times praised its ‘dazzling beauty ... The rare coming together of historical scholarship and curiosity about distant places with luminous writing’. His first Yashim novel, The Janissary Tree, became an international bestseller when it was published in 2006 and won the Edgar Allen Poe Best Novel Award in 2007. The Yashim mysteries, which include The Snake Stone and The Bellini Card, have been translated into more than 40 languages. He is married to Kate, his companion on the walk to Istanbul. They live in Dorset with their four children.