The thing about fiction is that it can combine many topics that would not go together in, say, a self-help book. "Murder in the Grand Bazaar: An Intellectual Thriller" (Don't let the title scare you off.) is my first novel and features a romance between two very different men, one an American professor, the other a Turkish policeman. Felix Markarian arrives in Istanbul to see a man about an ancient book that might shed new light on early Christian history, but the police tell him the man has been murdered and the book stolen.
What is more, the subject matter of the lost book has as much to do with attitudes toward "homosexuality" in the ancient world as it does with secret mystical lore. The ancient text is fraught with controversy, at the same time that Felix is forced to confront Turkey's ambivalent attitude toward his orientation while he navigates a new love with a man who feels the need to keep his feelings secret.
The thing about fiction is that it can combine many topics that would not go together in, say, a self-help book. "Murder in the Grand Bazaar: An Intellectual Thriller" (Don't let the title scare you off.) is my first novel and features a romance between two very different men, one an American professor, the other a Turkish policeman. Felix Markarian arrives in Istanbul to see a man about an ancient book that might shed new light on early Christian history, but the police tell him the man has been murdered and the book stolen.
What is more, the subject matter of the lost book has as much to do with attitudes toward "homosexuality" in the ancient world as it does with secret mystical lore. The ancient text is fraught with controversy, at the same time that Felix is forced to confront Turkey's ambivalent attitude toward his orientation while he navigates a new love with a man who feels the need to keep his feelings secret.