The Star of Istanbul: A Christopher Marlowe Cobb Thriller (A Christopher Marlowe Cobb Thriller, 2)

Butler, Robert Olen

ISBN 10: 1622311809 ISBN 13: 9781622311804

Publisher: HighBridge Audio, 2013

Synopsis

The first World War is underway; Germany has allied with the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish caliphs have declared jihad on the British Empire. Meanwhile, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson hesitates to enter the fray. Aboard the passenger liner Lusitania, war correspondent and American spy Kit Cobb has been assigned to shadow a German intellectual and possible covert agent who is believed to have information vital to the war effort. During the voyage Cobb is smitten with famed actress Selene Bourgani, who inexplicably seems to be working for the Germans.Cobb soon realizes this simple actress is anything but, as she harbors secrets that could pour gasoline on a world already in flames. From the doomed voyage of the Lusitania to the darkest corners of London to the powder keg that is Istanbul, Cobb must venture deep behind enemy lines and use all the cunning in his possession to uncover Bourgani's true motives.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Olen Butler is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of seventeen novels, including Hell, A Small Hotel, Perfume River, and the Christopher Marlowe Cobb series. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and received the 2013 F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* When we last saw Christopher Marlowe (“Kit”) Cobb, war correspondent, secret agent, and all-around soldier of fortune, he was in civil-war-torn Mexico, cavorting with Pancho Villa (The Hot Country, 2012). Now, in 1915, with WWI raging, and the neutral U.S. edging toward involvement, he’s aboard the doomed Lusitania, tracking a German American who may be a secret-service agent and falling under the spell of a famous actress, Selene Bourgani, who has secrets of her own. After the Lusitania meets its watery grave, Kit lands in London, where he continues to shadow the actress (well, not exactly: he’s fallen in love with her and does most of his “shadowing” in her bed). Meanwhile, there’s a German assassin out there somewhere called Der Wolf, whose eyes may be on both Selene and Kit. The Wolf’s trail leads to Istanbul, where Selene’s motives gradually become clear and where Kit lands in a blood-soaked finale. Butler juggles a lot of elements here, in terms of both plotting, as double and triple crosses merge like lanes in a traffic roundabout, and tone, as the novel commingles character-driven historical fiction with melodrama and swashbuckling action. Somehow, though, it all works; on one level, Butler is playing with genre conventions in an almost mad-scientist manner, but at the same time, he holds the reader transfixed, like a kid at a Saturday matinee. --Bill Ott

About this edition

• Publisher: HighBridge Audio
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1622311809
• ISBN 13: 9781622311804
• Binding: Audio CD
• Number of pages: 735