MURDER IN CONSTANTINOPLE

Not just murder but seduction, betrayal, political intrigue, assassination attempts and the mysterious White Death—all jostling for attention at the crossroads of East and West in the dawning of the Crimean War.

By day, Ben Canaan is a 21-year-old Jewish East End tailor’s son and apprentice; by night, he’s one of three Good-for-Nothings who prank the London aristocrats. But he can’t forget his first love, Elizabeth de Varney, who died two years ago of smallpox. Or did she? Shortly after one of Ben’s London schemes gets him into more trouble than usual, his father’s commission for a new suit for Viscount Palmerston, the Home secretary, reveals to Ben a recently dated daguerreotype of Elizabeth, unmistakably alive, together with a cryptic note from one Lynton Arabin Heathcote: “The White Death—more to come—trust no one.” Heathcote’s return address in Constantinople is enough to send Ben across the Continent in search of Elizabeth. His lost love turns out to be a woman of many identities, all of them, it seems, connected to the intrigue surrounding the war in Crimea, into which Ben plunges with two left feet and an improbable helping of good fortune. Veteran screenwriter Goldin’s first novel draws more direct inspiration from movies than novels, its breathtakingly episodic structure especially indebted to old-time 12-part serials. After Ben (spoiler alert) survives all his misadventures, the British ambassador first dresses him down severely for his bullheaded independence and disregard of rules and decorum and then offers him a job that promises, according to the author, four further sequels.

Wherever those sequels take the hero, they’ll be hard-pressed to compete with this debut for cheeky ebullience.