The Janissary Tree
By Jason Goodwin
By Jason GoodwinSummary:
It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the Sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Lastname, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world. You see, Yashim is a eunuch.
He leads us into the palace’s luxurious seraglios and Istanbul’s teeming streets, and leans on the wisdom of a dyspeptic Polish ambassador, a transsexual dancer, and a Creole-born queen mother. And he introduces us to the Janissaries. For 400 years, they were the empire’s elite soldiers, but they grew too powerful, and ten years ago, the Sultan had them crushed. Are the Janissaries staging a brutal comeback? [summary from US Macmillan Publishers https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429934374]
Group Review/Comments:
Thumbs up: 5
Thumbs down/couldn’t finish: 8
Thumbs up—
Slow start, but once into it ok
Loved the setting!
Author is a real historian, really accurate.
Liked Polish ambassador character!
Liked the cooking parts!
Yassim character really liked.
Really drawn in to the sense of place, really woven really well.
Investigation really exposed aspects of the community.
Strong women characters.
Pro-typical PI who was outside the power structure. Has access but no backup. Done well.
Fun.
Liked theme of all the different changes, how is the Ottoman empire changing.
Thumbs down—
The violence hit me wrong
I couldn’t keep all the characters straight.
It felt like reading a text book
Convoluted plot
Lots of tangents, too many new characters
Didn’t feel like I read a mystery, more like a novel.
Felt like learning about the culture for the sake of learning about the culture, not for the good of telling a story.
A bit too much detail. The cultural details were wonderful but could have cut back. Didn’t need to see every single detail of the community.
Confusing at end. Tied up really fast at the end, didn’t make sense.
Mystery gets lost in all the cultural details.
This book is a sprawling, ambitious, informative historical fiction mystery, set in late 1830’s Istanbul. The author includes a great deal of history about the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul and Constantinople, plus many discussions and descriptions of Turkish cuisine.
Unfortunately the book ultimately is unsatisfying, due to its frequent drifting away from the main storyline, inclusion of too many characters and loosely told plot. Better editing would have benefitted the book. I rate it only 2 1/2 – 3 stars out of 5.