Empire of Lies
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3.9 • 43 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Empire of Lies is a sweeping thriller in the tradition of The Man in the High Castle, Fatherland, and Underground Airlines from New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury.
“The best what-if thriller for a long, long time—makes you think, makes you sweat, and makes you choose, between what is and what might have been.”—Lee Child
Istanbul, 1683: Mehmed IV, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, is preparing to lay siege to Vienna, capital of the Holy Roman Empire, when a mysterious visitor arrives in his bedroom—naked, covered in strange tattoos—to deliver a dangerous, world-changing message.
Paris, 2017: Ottoman flags have been flying over the great city for three hundred years, ever since its fall—along with all of Europe—to the empire’s all-conquering army. Notre Dame has been renamed the Fatih Mosque. Public spaces are segregated by gender. And Kamal Arslan Agha, a feted officer in the sultan’s secret police, is starting to question his orders.
Rumors of an impending war with the Christian Republic of America, attacks by violent extremists, and economic collapse have heightened surveillance and arrests across the empire. Tasked with surveying potential threats, Kamal has a heavy caseload—and conscience.
When a mysterious stranger—naked, covered in strange tattoos—appears on the banks of the Seine, Kamal is called in to investigate. But what he discovers is a secret buried in the empire’s past, a secret the Sultan will do anything to silence.
With the mysterious Z Protectorate one step behind, Kamal, together with Nisreen—a fierce human rights lawyer—is caught up in a race across the empire and time itself—a race that could change their world, or destroy it.
Empire of Lies is being published as "The Ottoman Secret" in the UK.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Customer Reviews
Once it got going I was hooked
Man was this a hard book for me to get through at first! Empire of Lies turned out to be really good! However, the first 200 pages felt like they were just setting up for the plot. I got bored throughout those pages, the history being rewritten and the character backgrounds were really cool, don’t get me wrong, but it was a lot!
Now the last 245 pages were absolutely incredible. Once things got rolling, I was absorbed into the writing, wanted to know how things were going to turn out for our unlikely heroes. It was a roller coaster, and I loved it!
Wins:
-action packed plot once we got to it.
-character development. Kamals character development and change throughout the novel was absolutely incredible. I know at first he was supposed to be unlikeable. I didn’t get that, I liked him from his first chapter.
-a good history lesson for people -like me- who didn’t know much about the Ottoman Empire.
-absolutely heartbreaking moment towards the end. I wanted to scream, throw the book and cry all at the same time. Didn’t see it coming, super impressed with it!
Opportunities
-as I said above, the first like 180-200 pages are setting up for the plot. At first, I wanted to DNF the book because nothing really happened.
-a lot of Turkish that doesn’t have any explanation or meaning that’s just kind of thrown in there, but then the year is constantly pointed out as being 2017 in the footnotes. I would’ve liked a page just with translations or footnotes for those.
This book is very heavy, and it’s not one you want to pick up for an easy fast read, this took me a few days to get through, and that was after a reading streak of reading 450 page books in 1 day. I was definitely afraid of it putting me in a reading slump. Until I got to the actual plot, and things started flying by and the action was fast paced and real. The heartbreaking moments hurt like hell! All in all, a very good read once everything is established!