The Winter Thief: A Kamil Pasha Novel (Kamil Pasha Novels, 3) - Hardcover

White, Jenny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393070174 ISBN 13: 9780393070170

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010

Synopsis

A bank robbery and illegal weapons lead Kamil Pasha to uncover a plan to massacre an entire valley.

January 1888. Vera Arti carries The Communist Manifesto in Armenian through Istanbul’s streets, unaware of the men following her. When the police discover a shipload of guns and the Imperial Ottoman Bank is blown up, suspicion falls on a socialist commune Arti’s friends organized in the eastern mountains. Special Prosecutor Kamil Pasha is called in to investigate. He soon encounters his most ruthless adversary to date: Vahid, head of a special branch of the secret police, who has convinced the sultan that the commune is leading a secessionist movement and should be destroyed―along with surrounding villages. Kamil must stop the massacre, but he finds himself on the wrong side of the law, framed for murder and accused of treason, his family and the woman he loves threatened.

Exploring the dark obsessions of the most powerful and dangerous men of the dying Ottoman Empire, The Winter Thief also reflects the mad idealism of those turbulent times.

About this title

About the Author:

Jenny White is the author of the Kamil Pasha series: The Sultan’s Sea (a finalist for the Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award), The Abyssinian Proof and The Winter Thief. She is a professor of anthropology at Boston University, specializing in Turkey.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* The nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, in the throes of political upheaval, again provides the vividly realized background for this third mystery featuring Special Prosecutor Kamil Pasha. White demonstrates her in-depth knowledge of Turkish history in a deftly plotted and clever tale of intrigue, duplicity, and violence. The disappearance of illegal firearms, an explosion, a bank heist, and a deadly fire are just the beginning of a case that demands all of Kamil’s personal and professional resources. When Vahid, the scheming and sadistic head of the secret police, discovers the presence of Armenian communists in the area, his actions lead to a bloody massacre and near war. As Kamil and the police attempt to squelch rumors of rebellion and expose the true criminals, threats carried out on his family and against his livelihood render this case personal and deeply upsetting. The tension between self-preservation and ethical behavior (White masterfully forces her fully fleshed characters to make moral decisions in seemingly impossible circumstances) drives the story, but the presence of a depraved yet compelling villain and the immediacy of the setting (veiled women, bad hospitals, faulty weaponry, poor roads, noise, heat, danger) also contribute to what is White’s best book to date. A must-read for fans of Katie Hickman’s The Aviary Gate (2008) and Jane Johnson’s The Tenth Gift (2008). --Jen Baker

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0393070174
• ISBN 13: 9780393070170
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400