Synopses & Reviews
The Janissary Tree, the first book in a new series, is set in a most extraordinary world and features a most extraordinary sleuth.
It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Togalu, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world.
You see, Yashim is a eunuch.
He leads us into the palace's luxurious seraglios and Istanbul's teeming streets, and leans on the wisdom of a dyspeptic Polish ambassador, a transsexual dancer, and a Creole-born queen mother. He finds sweet salvation in the arms of another man's wife (this is not your everyday eunuch). And he introduces us to the Janissaries. For 400 years earlier the sultan had them crushed. Are the Janissaries staging a brutal comeback?
Review
"A work of dazzling beauty…The rare coming together of historical scholarship and curiosity about distant places with luminous writing." ---The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Togalu, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world. You see, Yashim is a eunuch.
About the Author
Jason Goodwin is the author of Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire, A Time for Tea: Through China and India in Search of Tea, and On Foot to the Golden Horn, among others. He lives in Sussex, England, with his wife and four children.Of his Yashim the Eunuch series, the Washington Post says, "Goodwin is an author of many strengths-the books in this series can be read independently of each other, and they just keep getting better." Stephen Hoye has won thirteen AudioFile Earphones Awards and two prestigious APA Audie Awards, including one for the New York Times bestseller Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki. A graduate of London's Guildhall and a veteran of London's West End, Stephen has recorded many other notable titles, such as Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong and The Google Story by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed.