The Baklava Club

In the fifth installment (after An Evil Eye) of Goodwin's Edgar Award-winning "Investigator Yashim" series, Istanbul is the same: crowded, dirty, stinking, filled with foreigners and intrigue. Yashim is asked by the valide, the grandmother of the reigning sultan, to act as guide to a young Russian woman who wants the valide to intercede with the Russian tsar on her behalf. Palewski, Yashim's erstwhile friend, is befriended by a trio of young revolutionary Italians who are travelling with a Danish beauty and a Catholic priest from Rome to study documents in the patriarch's library. Palewski is pressed into service by Midhat Pasha on a matter most delicate and very secret. As each of the threads of the story come together, the pattern slowly emerges. But when the entire picture is finally revealed, will Yashim be able to extricate himself and salvage anything?