My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk

 

'Black' Effendi has returned to Istanbul after a twelve year absence.  His uncle had sent him away because Black fell in love with his daughter Shekure.  Enishte Effendi runs a studio of miniaturists and illustrators.  He has traveled extensively and now the Sultan has given him a dangerous assignment.  He is to create a new book honoring the Sultan but it is to be illustrated in the Western style.  This directly contradicts the religious ban on what can and cannot be included in illustrations.  

Shekure is now a young widow with two sons.  Black still loves her and hatches a plan to marry her now that she needs protection.  In the midst of his courtship, one of Effendi's illustrators is murdered.  Before the murderer can be caught, Enishte is also murdered.  Who would do such a thing?  The Sultan insists that Black and Enishte's rival find the murderer.

Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist, his country's most successful one.  He has been honored with the Novel Prize for Literature for his body of work.  In this novel, multiple points of view are used with each chapter being written by a different character, many of whom are unreliable narrators.  It is at once a murder mystery, a love story and an exploration of the Turkish culture and the relationship between men and art.  Readers will be interested to read about the dichotomy between Eastern and Western art and the strictures of the culture in terms of how religion guides every facet of life there in this time period.  This book is recommended for readers of literary and historical fiction.