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.