Deep Waters by Barbara Nadel

Headline, 314 pages, out of print (c2002)

“Deep Waters” is the fourth book in Barbara Nadel’s series about Çetin İkmen, a homicide inspector in Istanbul, Turkey. Beginning in 1999 with “Belshazzar’s Daughter” and continuing through eighteen more novels, British author Nadel has given us a look at the cultures swirling in the city that straddles Europe and Asia. Istanbul has been the center of mighty ancient empires and modern-day subterfuge. It has the color and smells of the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Europe. Perhaps it’s difficult for someone not born in a place to authentically write about that place and I can't speak for Nadel's authenticity, but she crafts some excellent and entertaining mysteries while providing a lot of atmosphere.

“Deep Waters” is one-half solving the murder that falls under İkmen’s purview as a detective. The other half concerns personal matters of the series’ characters.

The Albanians and their complex cultural version of revenge is at the core of the police matter. Rifat Berisha’s body has been found. His throat has been cut, a sign of feudal enmity. His family has a blood war with the Vloras, so that family comes under scrutiny. A man of one family must kill a man of the other family, ad infinitum, until there are no more men in one of the families. That’s the way of fis.

İkmen is half Albanian, courtesy of his mother, the witch. The Albanian community accepts as common knowledge that Ayşe Bajraktar had powers and it was best not to cross her. Because of something one of the people in the homicide investigation said, İkmen now believes there was something fishy about his mother’s death. According to his family, she committed suicide. He and his brother discovered her after they returned home from school. His older brother shielded him from the sight of their mother, so İkmen has no personal knowledge of the death scene. Could his mother’s death and his current investigation be related?

Mehmet Süleyman, longtime sidekick of İkmen, now is a detective in his own right but still occasionally joins İkmen on his cases. He has asked Zelfa Halman, a much older woman, a psychiatrist, to marry him. He is an impoverished member of an aristocratic and ancient Turkish family. She is part Irish and still settling into her life in Istanbul. Her warring cultural halves prevent an easy answer to Süleyman’s question.

Nadel's personal background in mental health advocacy adds depth to this book. One of the characters is Dr. Halman's patient and he appears to be part of the large cast of people of interest in the murder. 

Heritage is at the crux of all the matters. Istanbul provides the cosmopolitan background. These are cultural deep waters.

Although Nadel's earlier books in the İkmen series are hard to get, there's no reason why one shouldn't just jump right into reading whatever is available.