Jason Goodwin’s series featuring his Ottoman detective Yashmin has quickly established itself as a readers’ favourite. Of course, having a eunuch investigator at the centre of your narratives is a fairly surefire guarantee that your series will be particularly memorable, but that basic concept has to be shored up by solid, atmospheric writing -- and that is just what Goodwin delivered in The Janissary Tree and The Snake Stone. Those books were crammed full of fast-moving narrative incident (including chases and even heady erotic episodes), not to mention elegant plotting and writing -- elements that are well to the fore once again in the new book, The Bellini Card. Here, Yashmin travels from sultry Istanbul to the darker place of Venice, employed by the Sultan to track down a lost painting by Bellini. Assisted by his old friend Palewski, the Polish ambassador, Yashmin immerses himself in a world of shady dealers, down-at-heel aristocrats and reckless pleasure seekers. Needless to say, the stakes are higher than simply finding a missing painting, and people soon begin to die violently. This is richly entertaining writing, delivered with the intelligence and flair that we have come to expect from Jason Goodwin. --Barry Forshaw