Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Belshazzar’s Daughter | 1999 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 2 | A Chemical Prison/The Ottoman Cage | 2000 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 3 | Prigione chimica | 2000 | Barbara Nadel | N/A |
| 4 | Arabesk | 2001 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 5 | Deep Waters | 2002 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 6 | Harem | 2003 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 7 | Petrified | 2004 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 8 | Deadly Web | 2005 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 9 | Dance with Death | 2006 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 10 | A Passion for Killing | 2007 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 11 | Pretty Dead Things | 2007 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 12 | River of the Dead | 2008 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 13 | Death by Design | 2010 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 14 | A Noble Killing | 2011 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 15 | Dead of Night | 2012 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 16 | Deadline | 2013 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 17 | Body Count | 2014 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 18 | Land of the Blind | 2015 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 19 | On the Bone | 2016 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 20 | The House of Four | 2017 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 21 | Incorruptible | 2018 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 22 | A Knife to the Heart | 2020 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 23 | Blood Business | 2020 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 24 | Forfeit | 2021 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 25 | Bride Price | 2022 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 26 | Double Illusion | 2023 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 27 | The Darkest Night | 2024 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
| 28 | The Wooden Library | 2025 | Barbara Nadel | Buy |
Barbara Nadel’s longest-running series follows Inspector Cetin Ikmen of the Istanbul police through cases that span decades of Turkish history. Beginning with Belshazzar’s Daughter in 1999, the series has grown to 28 books. Ikmen is an unusual detective: scrawny, chain-smoking, secular in a society growing more conservative, and prone to hunches that border on the mystical. He inherited a superstitious nature from his Albanian mother, who was rumored to have second sight.
The Istanbul setting is as much a character as Ikmen himself. Nadel captures the city’s layers of history, from Ottoman-era neighborhoods to modern commercial districts, from the wealthy Bosphorus villas to the poorer quarters. Many of the plots draw on real tensions within Turkish society, including ethnic divisions, religious conflict, and the role of the military.
Over the course of the series, readers have watched Istanbul change around Ikmen as Turkey itself has shifted politically and socially. The later books deal with more recent upheavals while maintaining the mystery plotting and character depth that brought readers to the series in the first place.