"The naked body of an Englishwoman washes up in Ottoman Istanbul wearing a pendant with the sultan's seal. This debut novel captures the political and social upheavals of the waning Ottoman Empire. The murder of an English governess for the royal harem stirs up a crisis at the palace and at the British embassy. The death resembles the murder by strangulation of another English governess, a crime that was never solved.

But were these political murders involving the sultan's palace or crimes of personal passion?".

"Kamil Pasha, a magistrate in the new secular courts, sets out to find the killer, but his dispassionate belief in science and modernity is shaken by betrayal and widening danger. Interwoven are the lush, mystical voice of a young Muslim woman, Jaanan, who recounts her own relationship with the dead woman and her suspected killer, and letters from the British ambassador's daughter, who finds herself investigating what the women in the harem know, with disastrous consequences."--BOOK JACKET.