A gripping tale of murder in nineteenth-century Istanbul. The naked body of a young English woman washes up in the Bosphorus wearing a pendant inscribed with the tughra, the Sultan's seal, found only on possessions of the imperial household. The Turkish magistrate Kamil Pasha sets out to find the killer but encounters a web of obstacles and links to the killing of an English woman. Were these political murders involving the palace or crimes of personal passion? Sybil, the daughter of the English ambassador, uses her connections to help Kamil infiltrate the secret world of the harem. As they untangle the threads, they make powerful enemies in a society where the forces of tradition and modernity collide.

Author Biography

Jenny White is a social anthropologist and the author of numerous non-fiction works about Turkish society and politics. Born in Germany she emigrated to the United States as a child. THE SULTAN'S SEAL is her first novel. It has been translated into ten languages and published in twelve countries and she is currently working on a sequel. She lives in Massachusetts and teaches social anthropology at Boston University as a tenured associate professor. Previous titles: The Sultan's Seal (TPB May 06)