Barbara Nadel: A Collection of Links

At last night's discussion of Belshazzar's Daughter, I said that I would post some interesting links to interviews with the author, Barbara Nadel, as well as articles she has written. Finally, there are two links concerning the final identification of the "missing" Romanov children. One link is to the research paper documenting the DNA analysis.

Interviews

Barbara Nadel   (February 20, 2006)

Quest for the intangible: Barbara Nadels's detectives and demons   (June 16, 2007)

Barbara Nadel: Chatting about her newest book and the facts of writing  
(July 5, 2009)

"Istanbul is Always There": Barbara Nadel's Inspector Ikmen Series   (May 19, 2010)

The Outsider: An Interview with Barbara Nadel   (October 12, 2010)

Articles Written by Barbara Nadel 

Where the Bodies are Hid   (2005?)

The Last Hookah: with a smoking ban looming, Barbara Nadel seeks out Istanbul's water pipe salons and laments the end of a 400 year old tradition
(May 23, 2009)

Istanbul: My Kind of Town   (June 2, 2009)

Insider's Istanbul   (March 22, 2010)


The Romanovs
Mystery of murdered Czar's missing children solved by DNA Study
(March 11, 2009)


 Mystery Solved: The Identification of the Two Missing Romanov Children Using DNA Analysis
(March 11, 2009)

Istanbul - A Great City Inspires Authors

Byzantium, Constantinople, and finally, Istanbul. Whatever the name, this ancient city that bridges Europe and Asia has long inspired writers with its busy harbor, labyrinthine underground, and magnificent buildings. The capital of Turkey, it is the fourth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million.


Several mystery authors have used this ancient city as the setting for three very different mystery series. Different in their periods and characters, but similar in their intriguing descriptions of the place and its diverse population.





British author Barbara Nadel has set her series in contemporary Istanbul. Her detective, Inspector Cetin Ikmen, is a chain smoking, police detective with a very large family and an interesting team of colleagues. Only the first four books in the series have been published in the United States, but hopefully the others will be forthcoming. The crimes and characters are both well written and full of atmosphere. Start with Belshazzar’s Daughter, which begins with a bizarre murder in the Russian emigre community.

Jason Goodwin’s The Janissary Tree won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Macavity in 2007. His detective, Yashim Togalu, serves the Ottoman sultan in 1830′s Istanbul. Yashim is supported by interesting characters including a defunct Ambassador of Poland and the Valide, the sultan’s mother. The plots are typically based on political situations of the time and the setting is ripe with the smells and sights of the ancient city and port.

Go back another 13 centuries when the city was known to the world as Byzantium, capital to the 6th century Roman Empire for Mary Reed’s John the Eunuch series. John serves as the Lord Chamberlain in Justinian’s very newly Christian court. The politics and machinations are every bit as outrageous as the Roman Roman Empire with everyone jockeying for power and protection against a backdrop of old religions and bickering courtiers.