Snake stone welcomes you to Istanbul— or should we say Byzantine or Constantinople— with a brutal murder. It is a time when the infidel sultan is dying. And the city is rife with intrigue, secret societies, cults so sinister their names make one’s blood run cold, all suitably fruiting into terrifying murders. Somewhere in Istanbul’s bloody history lies a mystery so compelling, it inspires murder and perhaps revolution.

Against these shadowy forces is ranged an unlikely hero— Yashim. To those brought up on hard-bitten fare like Sam Spade, or the big shouldered Saint, he is a rude shock: The Sultan’s eunuch. Collector of old books. An aesthete. A culinary maestro who serves up strange Turkish delights. Enough eccentricities you will note to claim a place in history and perhaps even push Poirot off his pedestal.

There are murders galore. You begin to lose count; 4 or is it 5? There is an international range of suspects. Greek secret societies. Turkish fanatics. Jewish moneylenders. Ottoman politics. Sinister Albanians. French adventurers. Maltese cutthroats.  Now, like a Turkish delight, one can read Snake Stone at many levels.

First of course, as an exotic whodunit.  On another level, it’s a ‘wheredunnit’. Half the pleasure of the book is the wealth one discovers in the bylanes of Byzantine history, the place it played in the world’s geopolitic.

At another level still, Snake Stone presents us with cultural cuts. In a world where all things middle-eastern are being portrayed as suppurating abscesses in need of lancing— Jason takes a few well aimed sideswipes that remind us that Western civilisation has just recently emerged from barbarianism.

“Poor Lefevre: It had been a mistake to expect the man to know anything. The Turks had been testing and refining dishes when the Franks chewed meat off bones held in their two hands.”

West meets East

The enormous borrowing of the west from the middle east is pointedly brought out: one is grateful to Yasim for pointing out that Bechamel, the queen of French cuisine is Miyane, an old nomadic dish. But there’s even greater depth. For Istanbul’s transition into Istanbul allows us to revaluate modernity itself.

“Yashim shook his head. The boy was right: if freedom meant taking your opinions out of newspapers and dressing up like everyone else then it was certainly something he would never understand.”

Snake stone by Jason is a gripping read. An enjoyable pop historic trip into Byzantium which makes suitably correct political statements. Now its time to rip out its entrails to see if there are guts in them.

Yashim, the eunuch, while seemingly satisfactory on first read becomes too much of a cartoon cut out on reflection. The eunuch, who has supposedly lived in a bloody political arena, is astonishingly naïve. And too often ridiculously like Florence Nightingale at the slightest opportunity.

His mind, supposedly Byzantine, is often no more subtle than TinTin’s Thompson detectives. For a political hitman of the sultan he carries surprisingly little clout, has no network of his own and is too often truly clueless in a city that is supposedly his backbeat.

One could, reading the political jabs in the book, believe Jason needs to be placed in the vicinity of Swift’s Gulliver. Frankly the mild political posturings are a little too coy to suffice. One is better off comparing Jason’s Snake to Eco’s Name of the Rose.

I sat up half the night reading Snake Stone’s 306 pages and enjoying every moment of it. But now that it’s done I don’t mind parting with it.

Jason loves his Istanbul. And his character, Yashim, the Eunuch Detective does have his points. But for his detective to really work, the detective needs a more serpentine mind. A more Byzantine sensitivity. A truly Ottoman heart. He is like many Hollywood films, portraying middle eastern dramas, just an American hero wearing facepaint. One day Yashim may brown at the bottom like middle eastern rice. And we await that day. But as of now, beneath the turban, he’s white.