Books by Jason Goodwin

'Perhaps the most readable history ever written' Time OutLords of the Horizons charts the Ottoman Empire's swirling epic history; dramatic - detailed and alive - a journey, and a world all in one. The Ottoman Empire has long exerted a strong pull on Western minds and hearts.

*Stop Press NovDec*

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.

Lefevre, a French archaeologist, has arrived in Istanbul determined to uncover a lost Byzantine treasure. Yashim is commissioned to find out more about him. But when Lefevre's mutilated body is discovered outside the French embassy, it turns out that there is only one suspect: Yashim himself. Once again, Yashim finds himself in a race against time to find the startling truth behind a shadowy secret society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, caught in a deadly game deep beneath the city streets, a place where the stakes are high - and betrayal is death.

Charged by the Sultan to find a stolen painting by Bellini, Yashim the detective enlists the help of his friend Palewski, the Polish Ambassador, and goes undercover. Venice in 1840 is a city of empty palazzos and silent canals, and Palewski starts to mingle with Venetian dealers - but when two bodies turn up in the canal, he realises that art in Venice is a deadly business, and it is up to Yashim to attempt to rescue his intrepid friend from forces bigger than they had ever imagined . . .