An engrossing first novel from a non-fiction writer
This does have traces of the author's inexperience in mystery fiction. While he makes the historical background entertaining, the characters are rather two-dimensional. However, that sure doesn't interfere with a quite engrossing and well-plottted mystery.I would have liked to see a post script revealing just how many characters were fictional creations and which ones were actual people in history. I'm especially curious about the Russian attache Potemkin and whether or not he's the Potemkin that the battleship many of us movie buffs are quite familiar with was named after.Ah well, that's what Google and the Wikipedia are for, I guess. Also, this book will be responsible for my reading the author's history of the Ottoman Empire.