by Tasha Alexander
Lady Emily Ashton Mysteries book #4
My rating: ★★★☆☆
Actually 3,4 stars rounded to 3.
A very intricate mystery.
___ THE PLOT IN SHORT____ Lady Emily and Colin Hargreaves, diplomats of the British Empire, are finally married and can't wait to enjoy a relaxing and magnificent honeymoon in an exotic place. Their choice falls on the wonderful Constantinople.
Of course as always, plans don't go as planned and on their first night in the city, a harem girl is found murdered, strangled in the courtyard of the Sultan’s lavish Topkapi Palace.
An Englishman who works at the embassy in Constantinople is present and recognizes the girl as his daughter, kidnapped twenty years earlier.
Emily and Colin promise the heartbroken man that they will find the girl's killer.
As a woman, Emily has access to the forbidden world of the harem and soon discovers that its mysterious, sheltered walls offer no protection from a ruthless killer.
As the death toll grows, Emily must rely on her sharp wits, putting her life at great risk and possibly with very serious consequences.
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The author is very good at deluding the reader that one can predict things, actually it is not.
More and more characters are entering the scene with each chapter and any hypothesis formulated by the reader in the end turns out to be unfounded.
You can't figure out how things went until the penultimate chapter.
Lady Emily's Adventures often take place outside her motherland (England) and I like this very much, even here the places, the most important buildings, uses and customs are described very well, so well that it seems to be there.
In each book (this is the fourth in the series, but I have already read others in no particular order) are mentioned some of her past adventures and several characters who are part of her life, some of whom are often involved in his investigations or appear in the book even sporadically maybe writing a letter or making a courtesy call, which makes Lady Emily's life and her character seem really real.
I'm giving this Lady Emily mystery 3 stars only for 2 reasons:
1)__the complicated mystery is enthralling, but when things get too long and never come to a solution it gets maddening and I get tired of reading the book...I've read the last few chapters quickly because for my taste it seemed to always go in circles without reaching the finish line and I was tired.
2)_ When I was little I was fascinated by the story of Aladdin's lamp and by Alibaba and the 40 thieves, by women dressed in colorful veils and by sultans with golden turbans.
Becoming an adult and seeing too many negative things on the TV news, those countries have lost their charm in my eyes and even if in the book the author tries to highlight the positive sides of that country and society, the middle east is not the place I would like to travel.
So the setting is well described and I don't doubt it was and still is fascinating, but it doesn't suit me and because of this the book didn't fully capture me as the other books I've read in this series did.
( As I always write : I'm Italian and my English is not the best, I hope I was able to explain what I meant. )
If you want to know more about PREVIOUS BOOKS, you can read my reviews here :
BOOK #2 : A Poisoned Season
BOOK #3 : A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander
book #5 : Dangerous to know
BOOK #13.5 : Upon the Midnight Clear ( Christmas novella )
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