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A Chemical Prison is the triumphantly accomplished second thriller by award-winning author Barbara Nadel. Perfect for fans of Donna Leon and Jason Goodwin.
‘Even better than Nadel’s extraordinary first book… tightly organised… the dark, Byzantine plot springs organically from the tensions of race and class in Turkish society, which is treated with a depth and detail unusual in a crime novel’ – Evening Standard
Inspector Çetin Ikmen and forensic pathologist Arto Sarkissian have been friends since childhood, and their work together in Istanbul’s criminal justice system has only served to cement their friendship. When they’re both called to a flat to investigate the death of a twenty-year-old, there is no reason to think their relationship will alter. The case, however, is a strange one. Ikmen learns from the neighbours that they have never seen the man enter or leave the flat. The only visitor they’re aware of is a solitary, well-dressed Armenian. Stranger still is that the limbs of the body are withered, and the victim seems to have been kept prisoner inside a gilded cage. What is it that’s making Ikmen’s old friend Arto, himself an Armenian, especially uncomfortable about the case?
What readers are saying about A Chemical Prison:
‘I cannot get enough of her well written stories and addictive characters‘
‘The descriptions of the city and its disparate and cosmopolitan groups of inhabitants are fascinating, as are the historical insights into Ottoman history and habits’
‘Gripping from start to finish’
‘Even better than Nadel’s extraordinary first book… tightly organised… the dark, Byzantine plot springs organically from the tensions of race and class in Turkish society, which is treated with a depth and detail unusual in a crime novel’ – Evening Standard
Inspector Çetin Ikmen and forensic pathologist Arto Sarkissian have been friends since childhood, and their work together in Istanbul’s criminal justice system has only served to cement their friendship. When they’re both called to a flat to investigate the death of a twenty-year-old, there is no reason to think their relationship will alter. The case, however, is a strange one. Ikmen learns from the neighbours that they have never seen the man enter or leave the flat. The only visitor they’re aware of is a solitary, well-dressed Armenian. Stranger still is that the limbs of the body are withered, and the victim seems to have been kept prisoner inside a gilded cage. What is it that’s making Ikmen’s old friend Arto, himself an Armenian, especially uncomfortable about the case?
What readers are saying about A Chemical Prison:
‘I cannot get enough of her well written stories and addictive characters‘
‘The descriptions of the city and its disparate and cosmopolitan groups of inhabitants are fascinating, as are the historical insights into Ottoman history and habits’
‘Gripping from start to finish’
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Reviews
Praise for Barbara Nadel's debut BELSHAZZAR'S DAUGHTER: 'Best crime fiction by a new writer...a great blooming baroque plot (ditto talent)
This is an extraordinarily interesting first novel... Çetin Ikmen is a detective one hopes to see more of'
It's really refreshing to encounter something as idiosyncratic and evocative among debut novels as...BELSHAZZAR'S DAUGHTER