The Janissary TreeA concubine is strangled in the Sultan's palace harem, and a young cadet is found butchered in the streets of Istanbul. Delving deep into the city's crooked alleyways, and deeper still into its tumultuous past, the eunuch Yashim discovers that some people will go to any lengths to preserve the traditions of the Ottoman Empire. Brilliantly evoking Istanbul in the 1830s, The Janissary Tree is a bloody, witty and fast paced literary thriller with a

vulnerable woman who calls herself Eleanor Rigby

and Sam and his crew are right up to their necks in a very scary case indeed

abandoned with her eccentric uncle during the holidays

This story is the song of Australia

Sam Vines is a man on the run

The Island is a society already at work

a veteran of Europe's hotel bedrooms

including a letter

Giordano Bruno was a monk

Ballards own childhood

But Cyprus is no 'sunshine posting'

Now aged 30