TULIP OF ISTANBUL
The novel begins with the story of a young man who finds his beautiful wife murdered on the wedding night. What is more perverse, the innocent young man himself is charged with the murder of his own wife and thrown into prison. In order to prove his innocence and to find the murderer of his lover, his only clue is a tulip bulb that he found in the palm of his dead wife. He has a secret identity which he was initially unaware of; he is a prince, a sultan's son, who has grown up outside the palace. An intrigue develops in the power circle about his rumoured existence. The story is interweaved with historical and cultural detail, introducing the reader to life within royal palaces and dervish lodges, to horticultural secrets about growing exclusive tulips, innovative treatment for the insanes in the asylum, torture devices in the prison, and to the conspiracies hatched in coffee houses and hamams by disaffected revolutionaries and gangsters.