Barbara Nadel

A body is found in the ruined Constantinople hippodrome: a woman, clutching a piece of red stone. She's recently given birth, but there's no sign of the baby. Inspector Cetin Ikmen discovers she was a Byzantine specialist on a crusade to protect the historic but now squalid areas of Istanbul that her enemy, property developer Ahmet Oden, seeks to destroy and rebuild. As Ikmen searches for the lost child and the truth behind her death, the people of...

Ever since it was built in 1912, Woolwich Foot Tunnel has been the subject of rumour and speculation. Running underneath the Thames it connects north and south, and in the hot summer of 1976, when young John Saunders apparently entered the Tunnel and completely disappeared on his way to his sister's house, it was a grim and frightening place. John was never seen again until he re-emerged forty-two years later, complete with an American accent. Happy...

A young Asian couple moves into a dilapidated house in Upton Park. The woman, Nasreen, spends much of her time working alone on the house, her husband Abdullah preoccupied with his job. John Sawyer is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Since his discharge, he has been volatile and is now homeless. An unlikely friendship develops between Nasreen and John, one that her husband would frown upon. When John's body is discovered, Nasreen's suspicions...

When Inspector Cetin Ikmen is invited to a murder mystery evening at Istanbul's famous Pera Palas Hotel, he finds himself embroiled in a deadly game of life imitating art. Halfway through the evening, one of the actors is found actually dead in the room where Agatha Christie used to stay when she was in Istanbul. Walking in the steps of the great writer, Ikmen experiences fear and hatred which have echoes deep in his own and his country's past.

When jeweller Fahrettin Muftuoglu is found dead in his apartment in the Istanbul district of Vefa, it looks like suicide. Searching the jeweller's home, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman and his team come across a hoard of extraordinary artefacts including solid gold religious relics and a mummified human head. But are they real and, if so, who owns these priceless possessions? As his colleagues begin their investigation, Suleyman is distracted by troubles...

In the shadow of St Paul's, Arnold and Hakim are drawn into an investigation involving an old man and a newborn baby. London, December 2019. Two young boys, Habib and Loz, are trying their luck at selling knock-off 'essential oils'. But they are troubled by an encounter with an elderly customer and a young man with a blood-smeared face. When Habib's big sister Iqra hears the boys discussing what happened, she puts them in touch with Lee Arnold and...

A young man drops dead in a fashionable Istanbul street. The autopsy proves it was a natural death - a heart attack - but what is in Emre Alphan's stomach is not. His last meal was of human flesh. Ikmen must trace Alphan's final movements, and discover who the victim was. Food itself has become contentious, with traces of pork discovered in tinned beans, accusations flying about whether this was a deliberately provocative act in a Muslim country,...

Private investigator and ex-soldier Lee Arnold and superintendent Paul Venus are by no means friends, but when Venus' son Harry is kidnapped and ransom demands arrive from an address in Arnold's patch in east London, the superintendent doesn't know who else to turn to. Arnold and his partner Mumtaz Hakim soon find themselves chasing leads into several of the East End's uneasily coexisting communities. Mumtaz uncovers a link to one of the area's powerful...

Brothers Ugur and Lokman Bulut are locked in a bitter inheritance battle and need a sample of their mother's DNA to contest her Will. But when her body is exhumed, her corpse is found to be missing and a fresh body, with its heart removed, has been put in her grave. Assigned to the case, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman quickly realises that the heart has been illegally harvested, and his team has a murder inquiry on its hands. Meanwhile, retired inspector...