Sunday, May 31, 2009 
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Dance with Death
Title: Dance with Death
Author: Barbara Nadel
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Headline Review
Copyright: 2006
Pages: 366
Keywords: mystery, Turkey
Reading period: 29–30 May, 2009

Inspector Çetin İkmen is called to a remote village in Cappadocia when a 20-year-old mummified body is found. The case is tearing the village apart. Back in İstanbul, Inspector Mehmet Süleyman investigates an increasingly violent series of male-on-male rapes.

Nadel clearly knows Turkey well, bringing to life characters from different social classes without patronizing them, showing Turkey in its complexity. The story was well crafted, weaving the two strands together to highlight tension. Pace a pet peeve of mine, the two cases did not suddenly, magically become related by the end of the book. The Agatha Christiesque denouement of İkmen's case was a bit much, though.

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