Petrified

Barbara Nadel

An embalmed body is found in an Istanbul apartment at the same time as two children disappear from the house of their insane father, pushing police resources to the limit. The style of writing fills the reader with a sense of urgency. You feel the need to discover the truth as soon as possible to prevent the situation from deteriorating further.

Extract

Coktin squatted down beside Yildiz and gently moved the chin of the man on the floor towards him. Istanbul was stewing in the humid, forty-degree heat of a midsummer afternoon but the man's skin felt as if it had just been removed from a refrigerator. Coktin quickly took his hand away before easing himself down to look into the second dead face he'd seen that day.

Parallels