The Janissary Tree

Book 1 in the five-part Investigator Yashim series, The Janissary Tree (2006), is a historical mystery novel by English author Jason Goodwin. Set in 1830s Istanbul, the story follows Investigator Yashim Togalu, a eunuch tasked with solving three different crimes. First, Yashim must solve the disappearance of four Janissaries, once elite troops of the Ottoman Empire. When one of the soldiers is found dead, Yashim must not only determine the killer, but also solve the murder of Sultan Mahmud II’s concubine, as well as the theft of jewelry belonging to the Sultan’s Creole mother. Along the way, Yashim seeks help from a Polish ambassador and a Russian noblewoman en route to figuring out the crimes and thwarting a grand conspiracy. Goodwin’s debut novel, which won the Edgar Award for Best Book, has been called a “dazzling work of beauty” by the New York Times Book Review, and “a triumph of the first order” by BookPage.

Narrated from varying perspectives, the story begins in 1836 Istanbul, as the county is on the cusp of old traditions and western modernity. Ten years before, during the Auspicious Event, Sultan Mahmud II split up and slaughtered the Janissaries, an unruly, but elite, military force of the Ottoman Empire. The westernized regime, with plans to conduct a military exercise soon, has replaced the Janissaries.

Yashim Taogalu, a Turkish eunuch in his late thirties, is dispatched to visit the barracks of the Ottoman army. When he arrives at the barracks of the New Guard, a modern French-trained army, the general asks Yashim to discreetly investigate the disappearance of four Janissaries. The corpse of one of the four Janissaries has already been found, murdered in a bizarre ritualized fashion. The soldier was drowned in a soup-maker’s large cauldron. Yashim is given ten days to solve the murders before the Auspicious Event takes place, and the Sultan declares widespread political reform. Accepting the task, Yashim begins an investigative journey through the bustling metropolis of nineteenth-century Istanbul. Being a rare eunuch allows Yashim to freely travel and consort among the harem girls of the Topkapi Palace.



As Yashim leaves the palace, visiting various embassies, bathhouses, bazaars, marketplaces, mosques, eateries, and exotic locales throughout Istanbul, he enlists the help of a confidant, the alcoholic Polish ambassador Stanislaw Palieski. Yashim also turns to his longtime friend, Preen, a transvestite dancer, to assist him in his investigations. Along the way, Yashim meets Eugenia, a sultry Russian noblewoman who also helps him explore his sexuality. While the details of Yashim’s castration remain unknown, he is able to have sex with Eugenia when she seduces him.

Almost immediately after Yashim is assigned to the case involving the dead soldier found in the soup-cauldron, the prized jewels of the Sultan’s Creole mother, given to her by Napoleon’s wife, Empress Josephine, go missing. Shortly after the theft, one of the virgin harem girls in the Topkapi Palace, Mahmoud II’s personal concubine, is found strangled. Although seemingly unrelated, Yashim soon discovers that each crime is linked to the ten-year anniversary effort of the remaining Janissaries to stage a coup d’état and regain control of the Ottoman Empire.

Making his way through the tannery district of the city, Yashim nearly loses his life when a Janissary assassin attacks him inside a Turkish bathhouse steam room. After a long fight, Yashim narrowly escapes death before chasing the bad guy off the top of the Hagia Sofia. The assassin stumbles, falls off the roof, and plummets to his death below. Yashim continues his investigation through the assorted bazaars and dirty alleyways of Istanbul. The three other missing soldiers are found dead, one by one, each murdered in a grisly fashion. Along the way, Yashim demonstrates his love of food and cooking as he indulges in a cornucopia of Turkish cuisine, often giving lengthy descriptions. Much of the novel is dedicated to describing the sensorial sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of nineteenth-century Istanbul, often placing the mystery plotlines in the background.



At the end of the novel, Yashim proves what he suspected all along. A disgruntled arm of the Janissary army has vowed revenge in the decade since being almost entirely eradicated, vowing to overthrow the Sultan and revert back to old traditions. While the Janissaries were once the protectorates of the Sultan, their greed and corruption turned them into mafia-like thugs, terrorizing the land and setting the city ablaze with raging fires. As a means of revenge, and with the help of the Russians, the madmen of the surviving Janissary faction systematically set out to kill four members of the New Guard, as well as the Sultan’s concubine. The same rebellious faction also stole the Sultan’s mother’s jewels as a means of payback. Yashim puts all of this together just in time to thwart a grand conspiracy to assassinate the Sultan and to keep the empire from falling apart.

The Janissary Tapes is followed by four books, including The Snake Stone, The Bellini Card, An Evil Eye, and The Baklava Club. Goodwin has also written a corresponding cookbook, Yashim Cooks Istanbul: Culinary Adventures in the Ottoman Kitchen. Before writing fiction, Goodwin wrote travelogues and studied Byzantine history at Cambridge University. His account, On Foot to the Golden Horn, documents his journey walking from Poland to Istanbul.