Sunday, March 25, 2012

[TSS] Musings: The Janissary Tree

The Janissary Tree
The Janissary Tree is the first book in Jason Goodwin's mystery series that revolves around Yashim, a 19th century eunuch in the Ottoman Empire.  There's not much about that sentence that does not appeal to me.  Historical mystery?  Good!  Very unusual narrator?  Fabulous!  Foreign and relatively unknown setting?  Glorious!

Since finishing up Lindsay Davis's Falco series about a month ago, I've started to look for a new mystery series to sink my teeth into.  Yashim seemed like such a likely candidate, but I didn't enjoy this book to continue on with the series.

The Janissary Tree is about Yashim's search for four missing soldiers.  One by one, the soldiers' bodies turn up out of nowhere around Istanbul, and Yashim is frantic to understand why, and what the bodies mean.  All signs point to the Janissaries, the legendary fighters-turned-domestic-terrorists who were disbanded a decade before the novel begins.  At the same time, he is tasked with finding out who stole the sultan's mother's jewels, and whether this robbery is related to the murder of a harem girl in the royal palace.

The setting for this book was really fantastic.  I felt like Goodwin really knew 19th century Istanbul - its characters, its customs, its food and its personality.  In fact, Goodwin's descriptions of food were fantastic.  Yashim is a main character who enjoys cooking and while reading this book, I had a great desire to explore Turkish cuisine.  I think it must be very aromatic.

Goodwin also had a very wide and interesting array of characters.  This was a boon and a curse, in my opinion.  There were so many characters, ranging from a dull but handsome Russian ambassador to a cross-dressing exotic dancer, that I became overwhelmed.  There were so many people that I couldn't keep straight, and it was very rare for any of them to be fleshed out to the point where I would really care at all about them.  And so many of them were given brief (and unnecessary, I feel) points of view, sharing their thoughts or feelings for a few pages before the novel moved on.  I didn't like being in so many people's heads without really knowing them, and because the novel is fairly short- about 300 pages- I didn't think Goodwin had any real reason to employ at least eight "main"characters and stint them all on personality.  It is possible that, since this is the first book in a series, Goodwin just wanted to introduce us to a lot of characters that will have recurring roles in the future, but I still felt very disengaged from the action because of the huge cast of characters.

And the action itself was really confusing to me.  This I don't blame on Goodwin but on myself.  It seems like Yashim just made assumptions and then acted on those assumptions and then they turned out to be right.  For example, when questioning someone early on in relation to the disappearance of the soldiers, he sees a tattoo that leads him down a certain path of conjecture.  But I didn't really know why that particular interviewee was deemed to be so important, or why Yashim seemed to follow that one hypothesis without coming up with any others.  Similarly, I don't even know how the mystery around the stolen jewelry was solved.  Maybe I was daydreaming through some pages, but for most of the book, Yashim completely ignored that case, and then on one page, he suddenly had solved it and the sultan's mom had the information just in time to avert a major tragedy.  Very convenient.

Really, I'm disappointed this book didn't work out better for me.  All of the separate elements seem so perfect and targeted for my enjoyment, but somehow the novel itself just didn't grab me.  And so my quest for a quality mystery series to enjoy over several years continues.  Any suggestions?  Please do not suggest that I once again take up with Lord Peter Wimsey.  I do not like him, however much he may have been Redeemed by the Love of a Good Woman.

18 comments:

  1. Have you tried the Matthew Shardlake mysteries by C.J. Sansom? They feature a hunchback lawyer (hence an actual reason for sleuthing) in Tudor England under Henry VIII. The first is called Dissolution (about the Dissolution of the Monasteries) and reminded me a bit of a less confusingly erudite version of The Name of the Rose. (My Review here)

    The best part about these in my mind is that they're each different - the first is a 'locked room' type mystery, the second more an adventure/thriller, the third historical (within a historical!), the fourth a serial killer, etc. They might suit you!

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    1. Hi Lana- I've read Dissolution and its sequel, but not the rest in the series. I read the first two quite a while ago and therefore feel like maybe I'll be a little lost if I pick up the series again now. I should give it another go, though, since I enjoyed the first two. The historical within a historical sounds pretty great!

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  2. I have The Janissary Tree on my TBR shelf here. I am curious if I will like it now. I've heard both good reviews and now not so good. I've read Dissolution that Lana above mentions - that is very good. I gave it to my mother for Christmas, and she loved it was well. Are you looking for historical mysteries only?

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    1. If you had asked me last week, I'd say yes. But I've just read a contemporary mystery featuring two octogenarian detectives and really enjoyed it. I also think I'm going to start the Dresden Files. So really- I probably have enough to keep me busy, but a quality historical mystery series would still be really fun :-)

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  3. So glad you like this one. I've read three in the series and really enjoyed them. Now I have to find out if my library has Dissolution...

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    1. Oh, good! I admit I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue with the series, but if you liked the next two...

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  4. The Coroner's Lunch, by Colin Cotterill. That's the first of the Dr. Siri Paiboun mysteries. It takes place in 1970s Laos, right after the communists take power. Dr. Siri is 75 and appointed national coroner against his will, and he takes no guff. There's a supernatural element which takes a little getting used to, but the mysteries are great, the setting is amazing, and I love these books.

    The only other mystery series I'm into recently is Sarah Tolerance, which I totally found from your blog, so no help there!

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    1. Ohh, I have recently started reading books with older protagonists and am enjoying them! I'll put this on my wish list, thank you.

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  5. if it did not work for me, then well who knows, but I am going for that it wont work for me either ;)

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    1. Haha, no, I am not sure if it is your kind of book. Though the cooking descriptions were great!

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  6. This sounds like an interesting read but the action may be something I'll get confused about too. Great review.

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    1. Yes, I often get confused at action in mystery novels, I admit... I may need to pay more attention!

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  7. It sounds like this book had so much potential. I'm sorry to see it didn't live up to it.

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    1. Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer but maybe the series gets better going forward.

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  8. I read this book over a year ago and hardly remember anything about it, but I too remember being disappointed by it. The premise just sounded so interesting, but the book itself was not really. The author has written some nonfiction about Turkey that I may get around to reading though, because he did seem quite knowledgeable about that.

    I don't know if you're just looking for a historical mystery series, but a good mystery series that I enjoyed for a while was Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon mysteries. Anna Pigeon is a park ranger with enforcement responsibilities, so all of the mysteries take place in U.S. national parks.

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  9. I saw the title and I was immediately intrigued. It looks like the sort of book I would enjoy. I am a big fan of historical fiction and the idea of reading something set in the Ottoman Empire sounds enticing. But your review has me balking a bit. Have you read the Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde?

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    1. I have read that one, but not any of its sequels. One day I hope to go back to it. I really enjoyed it! So witty :-)

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  10. I haven't read this series, but it sounds like there are a lot of appealing elements in this one. I tend to have somewhat lower expectations for the first book in a series (similar to watching the pilot of a TV show), but I'm always very pleasantly surprised when I needn't have done. (I would have suggested Ian Hamilton's Ava Lee series, but I see you already discovered my post on them; I hope you enjoy the first, which has a different title when published internationally, I believe.)

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