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The winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature has created a masterpiece of evocation, conjuring up its imaginary island with superb immediacy and a magnificent panorama of the last days of the Ottoman Empire. A tale of spies, conspiracy and murder, full of vivid characters, Pamuk cleverly combines true facts with imagined scenes and has patiently plotted the course of a nationalistic revolution in Turkey. An historical murder mystery set in 1901 amid an epidemic of bubonic plague, it is a wry meditation on nationalism and identity, history and myth, science and superstition. Night draws in. With the stealth of a spy vessel, the royal ship Aziziye approaches the famous vistas of Mingheria, 'an emerald built on pink stone', the 29th state of the ailing Ottoman Empire. The ship carries Princess Pakize, the daughter of a deposed sultan, her doctor husband, and the Royal Chemist, Bonkowski Pasha. Each of them holds a separate mission. Not all of them will survive the weeks ahead, because Mingheria is on the cusp of catastrophe. There are rumours of plague, rumours some in power will try to suppress. But plague is not the only killer. Soon the eyes of the world will turn to this ancient island where the future of a fragile empire is at stake. 683 magnificent pages in large softback 12.9 x 19.8cm.