"One of the most frequently asked questions that I get as a British author," Barbara Nadel tells the e-zine Shots ( www.shotsmag.co.uk ), "is 'why do you set your crime series in Istanbul?' I generally finish my now familiar diatribe with . . . 'Istanbul has a lot of places in which to hide bodies.' "
Since her release of "Belshazzar's Daughter" in 1999, Nadel has continued to prove her point in an ongoing series of police procedural novels set in Istanbul featuring inspector Cetin Ikmen. The work under review is for the U.S. edition, initially released in Britain under the title "A Chemical Prison."
Ikmen, Nadel's series character, is a tough Turkish cop, a chain smoker and plodding investigator out of the Simenon-Maigret mold, so old-fashioned he still hasn't figured out how to use his cell phone. From his personal life we see he's also something of a male chauvinist. Problems at home, including a senile father who needs to be institutionalized, are taking a toll on his subservient wife.