I just finished listening to The Janissary Tree, by Jason Goodwin,
read by Stephen Hoye. To my delight this is an unusual, exotic
historical mystery, well written and fast paced. The Janissary Tree
is set in Istanbul in 1836. What attracted me to the title was the
Janissary connection from "The Religion" which I also recently,
set in the 1530s. Ten years before this story is set, in 1826, the Janissaries (the Ottoman Sultan's version of the Roman Empire's Praetorian Guards), had been crushed by the "New Guard", the Sultan's newly created standing army. Why did the Sultan choose to create and train the "New Guard" to defeat his own sworn guards (Janissaries)? Because, like the Praetorian Guards, the Janissaries had evolved from a protective legion (in the 1530s) to one that terrorized the populace and the Sultan himself in 1826. Now, ten years later, the mysterious
disappearance of four members of the "New Guard" and the murder of
one of the Sultan's harem, heralds the possible return of the
Janissaries. The return of the Janissaries threatens to destroy the
Sultan (the common practice being to kill not only the Sultan, but
all his blood relatives as well) and the relative calm of Istanbul.
Enter Investigator Yashim (a natural born eunuch - who....
nevertheless has a steamy encounter with the beautiful but lonely
wife of the Russian ambassador to Turkey halfway through the book)... an
unusual leading character to say the least.
Yashim has ten days to solve the mystery of 4 missing "new guards" (one has already turned up dead). Soon bodies are appearing in bizarre
places, and Yashim and his "friends" (including a the decadent Polish
Ambassador who has no recognized country to represent, and a
transvestite dancer) try to get to the bottom of this revolt.
This is my first listen to this reader and first book by this
author. And, what a delightful surprise. Hoye, gets a high B in this
performance IMHO. I am quite quirky about readers, so this recommendation is a rare one. Hoye is excellent here, well above average characterization, identification, and range.
Never the less, I have to say that Yashim is quite a bizzare leading
character, the opposite of the usual "hero" sterotype, and I'm not
sure how the author intends to use him as the basis for a series.
While this first book (only 9 CDs long) is GREAT, I just don't see
this character as being the basis for a sluth series. JMHO. Still, I
highly recommend this first story.
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Top reviews from other countries
venita coelho
Lovely backdrop. Classic Golden mystery
Reviewed in India on December 11, 2019