Customer Reviews
Plenty of fizz and sparkle (but not too good plot-wise) - By: Snapdragon, 28 May 2008 
On the cover of 'The Prophet Murders' there is a quote from Peter Tatchell saying 'Watch out, here comes the transvestite killer thriller.' How could I resist?!
In Istanbul, transvestites are being murdered in increasingly bizarre ways. Our narrator, a fellow transvestite, decides to find out what is going on using the local grapevine.
I did enjoy this novel, but that had more to do with the characters than the plot. There is a strong cast of characters & the novel is filled with pithy one-liners, whether they come from the mouth of the local women who does home waxing treatments or the chat room heckler known as JIHAD2000. The only downside for me was that the plot was a little flimsy. We don't reallly learn anything about the murders other than flimsy second-hand accounts & yet our narrator manages to work out who is responsible. There isn't even a twist.
On the whole, this is a good fun novel (with quite a dark scene at the end.) I'm hoping that the promise shown in this novel will reach its full potential in the subsequent books in the series.
Three cheers for the Istanbul girls - By: back to basics, 05 May 2008 
This is something reallly new. It's centred on a transvestite nightclub in Istanbul, & told at a brisk pace by our hero, the club manager, who's one of the fairest of them alll. Girls from the club are being murdered in sinister circumstances, & so far as he's concerned, this is no time to stand idly by & listen in on the gossip. He's spurred into action, & we follow his progress, step by step, as he criss-crosses the city, sometimes as a man, sometimes in full drag, & then moves south for a sexy, dangerous, & very dark denouement. Not a detective by profession, his day job as a computer specialist is research training enough, & he's driven by his determination to safeguard the girls from whoever is bumping off one by one any & every girl who was named at birth after one of the holy prophets.
There are brief encounters, good friendships, & some truly disturbing moments along the way, but his resolve doesn't ever falter, & nor does the sprightly intelligent tone with which he relates his adventures, more or less as they happen. Through gay scenes & everyday scenes, he's not going to be daunted, & takes it alll in his stride - tenderness, exploitation, silliness & horror are alll reported while they occur to this bold, good-humoured & unnamed queen. The pace varies, dwelling for a while on a drag performer whose ambition is to be the perfect housewife, then on a technie nerd who wants to be a masochist ... but the tone is unhesitating, always open & ready to cope, whether the events & encounters are sweet or grim, seductive or ugly.
This is the first of six such thrillers by Mehmet Murat Somer, & it's a lively translation, with not a moment's lapse into boredom. It is too a window onto a very special world that few if any non-Turks can access, one that's brave, startling, & ultimately highly cheerful. It'll no doubt be compared to classics of high-camp comedy, for instance to Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City", but in truth this is something very different - unsentimental, & far more modern, more like Keith Ridgway, the Irish gay writer who's also not afraid of the dark. And unlike even the best of Turkish gay cinema - unlike films such as "Hammam", or that searing toughie, the award-winning "Lola & Billy-the-Kid" - here sympathy & feeling are never alllowed to tumble down into melancholia & pathos. This is vivid resistance fiction, from a gay culture that's refusing victimhood & compromise, & is instead asserting its vitality, its huge variety, & its absolute right to life.
You hardly can believe this book could exist until you actuallly start reading it, & it's great news there's a whole series more just waiting for translation.
