Brilliantly narrated by a series of clever characters, this work is a stimulating brew of mystery, romance and rhapsody on the very nature of art. Inspired and inspiring, it confirms Orhan Parmuk as a Nobel-calibre artist in his own right. But I have no style whatsoever. Having a style would be worse than being a murderer. At the end of the sixteenth century, the art of Ottoman miniature painting is in a precarious state. The sultan has commissioned a great book: a celebration of his life, his empire and the thousandth year of the Hejira, to be illuminated by the best painters in Istanbul. His contractor, Enishte, wants to splash about in the latest European techniques, but Islam forbids the use of perspective-objects must be shown according to their importance in Allah’s mind. With fundamentalists on the march, Enishte has the artists paint just one section of a picture at a time, so they do not realize they are crating heretical images. When the gilder is found dead in a well and Enishte is killed in his workshop, fear grips the rest of the miniaturists. Is the murderer in their midst? The sultan demands an answer, and the only clue seems to lie in the half-finished illustrations.
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