Bellini Card

The third book in Jason Goodwin's celebrated Ottoman Detective series takes Yashim from the winding alleyways of Istanbul to the decaying grandeur of Venice.

Yashim is charged by the Sultan to discover a lost painting by Bellini. Enlisting the help of his friend Palewski, the Polish Ambassador, our Ottoman detective goes undercover. Venice in 1840 is a city of empty palazzos and silent canals, where Palewski starts to mingle with Venetian dealers - self-made men, faded aristocrats and the hedonistic Contessa, a flaming blonde of a certain age. But when two bodies turn up in the canal, he realises that art in Venice is a deadly business. And meanwhile, what has happened to Yashim.

The Bellini Card is a thrilling adventure, in which a quest for a lost painting turns into a dangerous game of cat and mouse - that threatens to destroy the Ottoman throne and overturn the balance of power in Europe.

Jason Goodwin's first Yashim mystery, The Janissary Tree, became an international bestseller when it was published in 2006; it and its sequel, The Snake Stone, have been translated into thirty-seven languages.