thought the ending was very tricky. Much like the ending of great expectations open to interpretation.
Sorry to see the series go. This one had all of the usual-food- sex despite the main character being a eunuch- the friendship of Yashim and the Polish ambassador. Wouldn't reccomend unless you were already familiar with the series. ( )

Investigator Yashim's best friend in 1840s Istanbul, the Polish ambassador Count Palewski, hosts a group of Italians who are in Turkey to plot a revolution that will finally unite Italy into a single country. They consume champagne and baklava, but Palewski thinks they're all talk and no action. They're just "The Baklava Club." Until things start turning askew in international intrigue in and out of the sultan's court.

This is the last (though I'm hoping the author will write more) of the Yashim novels set in an Istanbul of quickly-fading glory. One of the interesting things about this series is that when Yashim gets stuck on a case, he goes home and starts to cook... And we get a mouth-watering recipe in the bargain. ( )

[Baklava Club] by [[Jason Goodwin]] is the fifth and final book in the Yashim the Eunuch series. The author had announced on his web site that it was time to say goodbye to Yashim and this was a good novel with which to end the series. This novel was full of international intrigue and tragedy, as well as love and friendship. This novel was very good at setting the place of the Ottoman and Russian Empires in the European schema. By that, I mean, it illustrated how much these two powers were actually on the fringes of the European diplomatic scene, and yet how integral they were due to their constant jostling and pushing for more influence and power on the world stage in which both countries were engaged. All of this would explode into the Crimean War in the next decades, and this novel sets the stage for this mean little action.

Aside from that, it is also an intensely personal story. Yashim falls in love, the valide learns she isn't a world player, and Palewski continues to have his hopes for a Poland to be on the map of Europe. The plot starts gently and then explodes into a cover-up that ends up horribly for all the participants. It is just the kind of climax that should end a series that educated its audience and elucidated a little known part of the civilized world during the Victorian Age. ( )

This was supposed to be the "Last" in the series...... Effendi Yashim (Investigator to the Pasha & Valide, Eunuch, & Orphan) turns out to have such a large & vociferous following that Jason Goodwin didn't "kill him off" after all!

Istanbul 1842: Yashim's old friend, Polish Consulate Palewski, has become the center of interest of a group of young Italians (one with a beautiful Danish girlfriend) wanting to break away from the Pope.... In the meanwhile unbeknownst to most, Palewski has taken on a undercover assignment for the Pasha...... When Palewski is shot, Yashim takes a most genuine interest in the investigation of why, how & whom......

In the mean time a young woman from exiled Russia (Siberia) has come to petition the Valide to help her father's cause.... liberating him from his exile. Them there is the Roman Priest, who spends most of his time in the archives of Istanbul searching for a much sought after Papal Decree and drinking Palewski's bourbon and generally being a pain.

There is a kidnapping, the murder of one of the Pasha's clerks, the attacks on Palewski & Yashim, and the murder of the Dane...... No one is whom they seem to be, the Italians are members of a "liberation cell", the Russian is maybe not as helpless as she seems, the Pasha isn't as unaware as he seems, Palewski is much more courageous & true to his beliefs than ever before, and Yashim is as great of a cook as he has ever been.

I am so happy that Yashim was not killed off. I am already grieving for the Mamur Zapt whose last book I read in June....... I never did guess what was going on, so the mystery was strong. As always, I loved Yashim's cooking and I have found a new manner of Pilaf...... Not only did the book hold my interest, I even liked most of the characters no matter how tragic their innocence. ( )

This was a very odd book. OK, I accept that it's the 5th in a series, so it might make more sense in a developing story over a number of books. The sex was completely unnecessary, and didn't add much to the story or the characters, it came a bit out of the blue. The detective figure is Yashim, a eunuch of the court of the Sultan's mother in Istanbul.
The title refers to a group of 3 Italian exiles, who meet with the Polish ambassador Polevski and generally act like unbearable puppies. The background of the story is political, with Poland being subsumed by various empires and the Italian concern being the unification of Italy and the power of the pope. In the middle of this there are the ladies, the danish wife (mistress) of one of the Italians and Natasha, the daughter of Russian exile who has written to the Validee and has come to stay.
It al gets somewhat confused, there is an attempted murder that turns into a kidnap and wounding, there is a murder and through it all Yashim tries to sort it out. Not exactly to discover the truth, or to solve the murder, more to make sure that Istanbul survives. It has some interesting elements, but it didn't seem to hang together.The politics were complicated and not at all resolved, but then, neither did I really care about them. A degree of the discovery happens off stage, as it were, by the various justices of the city. .
I can't see myself coming back to this. ( )