Turkey

Revenge thrillers come in many shapes and sizes, and Flowers From The Black Sea by AB Decker (left) begins with the main character, a barely competent English security consultant called Matt Quillan travelling to end-of-season Turkey on an all-expenses-paid favour for his old university chum Ben Braithwaite. Quillan’s task appears relatively simple, and it is to locate the whereabouts of a man called Ahmet Karadeniz, last known of in the vicinity of Karakent, a small town on the south coast. Any job is a job as far as Quillan is concerned, and so he fetches up in Karakent and starts to ask questions. However, on his bus journey from Istanbul he meets a mysterious stranger called Rekan, who gives him a USB flash drive for sage keeping. Anyone with a grain of sense would probably have refused, but Quillan takes it, and when the bus is stopped by the police, and Rekan is taken into custody, our man begins to wonder.

After being questioned by the police Quillan is allowed to continue his journey, and soon makes the acquaintance of a local English estate agent, Pearl, and then her sister Amber, who is in town for her annual holiday. Eventually Quillan learns why he has been sent to Turkey. Ben’s sister Peggy married Karadeniz but died in circumstances which were, from a distance, highly suspicious although, according to Muslim custom, Peggy was interred very quickly, and autopsy was ever carried out.

Having reported back to Ben via phone, Quillan is surprised when his wealthy friend arrives in Karakent, aboard his luxury yacht. Quillan is, perhaps, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and he is persuaded to stay around while Ben exacts revenge for the untimely death of his sister.

The matter of the flash drive and what it contains is central to the plot. I haven’t been to Turkey since the 1970s, and I won’t pretend that it was an altogether pleasant experience. Yes, countless British holidaymakers go to tourist resorts these days and experience nothing but enjoyment, but these places are pretty much gated off from the real Turkey. Back in the day, we were ‘hippy’ travellers with little cash and, shall we say, we had our moments. Today, Turkey is pretty much an autocracy, and its treatment of minorities such as Kurds and Armenians is often in the news.

This novel is not a sermon about the shortcomings of Muslim societies, but it reference the mistreatment of women in what is predominantly a patriarchal society, by any Western standards. I suppose, aside of the dramatic plot, Decker is simply reasserting what we have known for centuries. Turkey is very much a ‘twixt and between’ place, never sure if it belongs to the urbane West or the visceral certainties of the East.

Long story short, Ben and Matt are captured by gangsters, Ben’s yacht is seized and run aground but, thanks to an intrepid Kurdish nationalist called Leila, the mysterious contents of Rekan’s USB drive, all’s well that ends well. Except it isn’t. Literally in the last paragraph, we have an act of violence that redefines the nature of revenge. Decker has written a convincing and engaging thriller which captures the sense of menace and political uncertainty in a complex country. Published by The Book Guild, it is available now.

With due apology to the wonderful Andrew Marvell and his timeless poem To His Coy Mistress, (surely the best collection of chat-up lines ever penned) I have this to say;

Had I but world enough and time,

This reading pile would be no crime.

I would sit down, and think which way

To read, and pass my idle day.

The fascinating books just keep on coming, and the latest batch are all too typical of the amazing quality and variety of crime fiction books which are out there, just waiting to be read.

With a father, Leif Gustav Willy Persson a Swedish criminologist and novelist who was a professor in criminology at the Swedish National Police Board, it is hardly surprising that Malin Persson Giolito should be drawn to the world of crime. Not only is she a lawyer, but has a growing reputation as a writer of crime fiction. Her latest novel, Quicksand, will be released in March/April of this year. Published by Simon & Schuster and translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles, Quicksand is the story of Maja Norberg, a teenage girl who has been caught up in one of the worst crimes in recent Swedish history. She has been, in turn, vilified and championed by the mainstream media, but now she is to have her hour – and more – in court. Is she a cold-blooded killer, or a demonised victim of an unspeakable evil?
Quicksand is available for pre-order in all formats.

Barbara Nadel (right) is best known for her long running and highly successful crime series set in Istanbul, featuring the established cast of Çetin İkmen, a chain-smoking and hard-drinking detective on the Istanbul police force, and his colleagues Mehmet Süleyman, Balthazar Cohen and Armenian pathologist Arto Sarkissian.

Her series of novels featuring private investigator and ex-soldier Lee Arnold and his assistant Mumtaz Hakim, of which this is the latest has, apart from being excellent thrillers, tackled head-on the sometimes thorny questions surrounding the role of Muslim professional women in the UK’s largely secular society.

Bright Shiny Things couldn’t be more topical. With suspicions of Islamic radicalisation sparking along East London’s Brick Lane like a gunpowder fuse, and Turkey’s border with Syria being one of the most dangerous places in the world, Hakim and Arnold undertake a mission to trace the son of an old military contact of Arnold’s. Has Fayyad al’Barri renounced his family values and thrown in his lot with ISIS, or is the boy a victim of something evan more sinister? Bright Shiny Things will be out in April, and you can pre-order here.

Falling Creatures by Katherine Stansfield will appeal to those who like a good period drama, a dead body or two, an atmospheric setting and a sense of Gothic looming over everything. 1844? Tick. Beautiful girl found with throat cut? Tick. Bodmin Moor, beloved of Arthur Conan Doyle and Daphne du Maurier? Tick. Mists, marshes and malevolent men? Tick. The author grew up on Bodmin Moor, and her debut novel The Visitor, won the Holyer an Gof Fiction Prize in 2014. You can find out more about the author (pictured left) by visiting her website katherinestansfield.blogspot.co.uk. Due to be published in March by Alison and Busby, Falling Creatures can be pre-ordered here .