Byzantine Mystery

A gripping spy memoir that unravels a world of power, corruption, and high-stakes diplomacy. Set against the backdrop of the Vatican, the Kremlin, and a master chess player with a hidden agenda, this riveting narrative explores the intersection of centuries-old conflicts and modern-day geopolitics. As the story weaves through diplomatic maneuvers and oil pipeline rivalries—from Africa and the Middle East to Xinjiang, China—it exposes the dark underbelly of international lobbying in Washington and London. At the heart of this saga is a retired ambassador, who is now working for one of ...

When jeweller Fahrettin Muftugolu is found dead in his apartment in the Istanbul district of Vefa, it looks like suicide. Searching the jeweller's home, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman and his team come across a hoard of extraordinary artefacts including solid gold religious relics and a mummified human head. But are they real and, if so, who owns these priceless possessions?

The bubonic plague was the worst affliction ever visited upon Europe and the Mediterranean world. Within a few short years, a quarter of the population was taken after a short but torturous illness. Those who escaped faced famine and economic hardship. Crops were left unsown; the harvests spoiled for lack of harvesters; villages, towns, and great cities were depopulated. Markets were destroyed; and trade ground to a halt. It must have seemed like the end of the world to the terrified populace.

In 1453 the collapse of Byzantine Orthodox Christianity's most sacred City, Constantinople, radiated shocks through the entirety of the Christian world. Symbolically, the Islamic Ottoman Turks had made Santa Sophia, the most famous Christian church in the world, into a mosque. Any doubts that there was a now an Ottoman Empire poised to conquer the Christian West were dispelled. But the history around the collapse itself was surrounded with loose ends and oddities.