Opposite sects

by Jenny White

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 344pp, 12.99

THIS BOOK'S PROLOGUE IS SET IN Constantinople in 1453, hours before the city is taken by the Ottoman Turks. Isaak Metochites sees it as his duty to smuggle a sacred object out of the doomed city. It is a silver reliquary carved with the figure of a weeping angel and the inscription: "Behold the Proof of Chora, Container of the Uncontainable." Isaak's daughter asks her father what is inside, and he replies: "The Proof of God".

The prologue may make you fear that you are in Da Vinci Code territory , though it is so well and vividly written that you quickly realise such fear is unfounded. There is certainly much hokum in this novel – splendid hokum – but it is more than that. It's a crime novel, but also, agreeably, a novel of character. This is a hybrid, which is difficult to bring off. In most crime novels, characters are subordinate to action, rarely thoroughly imagined. Conversely novels of character are often short of action. Here the two genres are happily married.

The main story is set in Istanbul in 1887. The central figure is a magistrate, Kamil Pasha, who is investigating thefts of antiquities from mosques and churches which soon appear for sale on the European market. More disturbingly still, a series of murders is taking place, the bodies marked by a curious sign, which may be an "M" or a pair of angel's wings. His investigation, conducted in alliance with a policeman named Omar, leads him to a strange sect, with its own priestess and her brother who is hereditary caretaker of a mosque. Nobody knows much about the sect. There are rumours members are Christians who have, for reasons of their own, conformed outwardly to Islam. They have a connection with Abyssinia, legendary land of the Queen of Sheba; their young men are sent there to a monastery when they are mere boys to be trained or educated for eight years.

The priestess's son, Amida, has returned to Istanbul, disgruntled, in love with his idea of modernity. For centuries members of the sect have acted as middlemen between thieves or smugglers and dealers: now the young, disturbed Amida has ambitions which lead him into dangerous and terrifying territory.

The plot is involved, moves briskly nevertheless, and never quite topples into incredibility. This is partly, as already suggested, because all the characters are well fleshed-out and most of them are sympathetic. Even the chief villain has substance.

The author, Jenny White, is an American anthropologist who has written a number of non-fiction books about modern Turkish society. This is her second novel. Not surprisingly then, the other chief character is the city itself. She clearly loves Istanbul and is fascinated by the place and the layers of history to be found there.

My only complaint is that the publishers have failed to supply a map of the city on the endpapers. Had they done so, it would certainly have been easier to follow the movements of the characters.

I don't know whether such a sect as she describes exists. It may seem improbable, but is certainly not impossible, and she makes its existence fully believable. If White has invented it, it's not only a fine invention, but in doing so she makes a serious point; a point which echoes through the narrative. In the European provinces of the Ottoman empire, nationalism is awake and sectarian massacres are taking place. (Think of Gladstone's denunciations of the "Bulgarian atrocities" and of the fate of the Armenians.) But Istanbul is still a cosmopolitan city where Muslims, Christians and Jews live cheek by jowl and most of the time in harmony, as, indeed, they have done for centuries.

It was to be the 20th century which saw ethnic cleansing throughout the old Ottoman Empire, and the re-emergence of sharp divisions and sectarian intolerance, the result of secular nationalism and religious fanaticism. So an old multi-cultural civilisation was corrupted and destroyed.

As for "the Proof of God", it's enough to say that it reminds us that followers of the three great monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – are all "People of the Book", drawing faith from the same ancient source. In writing a thoroughly enjoyable and gripping crime novel Jenny White also makes a serious point about today's politics and invites us to think. This is no mean achievement. Her first novel was The Sultan's Seal. I intend to look out for it.