By Ian McDonald
First Published: 2010
Another day, another tram bomb. It seems everyone is after a piece of Turkey. But the shock waves from this random act of twenty-first-century terrorism will ripple far beyond Necatibey Cadessi.

Welcome to the world of The Dervish House—the great, ancient, paradoxical city of Istanbul, divided like a human brain, in the great, ancient, equally paradoxical nation of Turkey. With a population pushing one hundred million, and Istanbul alone swollen to fifteen million, Turkey is the largest, most populous, and most diverse nation in the new Europe, but also one of the poorest and most socially divided. It’s a boom economy, the sweatshop of Europe, the bazaar of central Asia, the key to the immense gas wealth of Russia and central Asia.

In the sleepy Istanbul district of Eskiköy stands the former whirling dervish house of Adem Dede. Six characters’ lives revolve around it.

A retired economist from the Greek community is hired into a top-security think tank, but keeps a dark secret from another century.

A nine-year-old boy, confined to a silent world by a heart condition where any sudden sound could kill him, becomes a reluctant detective.

A rogues trader sets up the deal o the century smuggling contraband gas but discovers it’s only the tip of an iceberg of corporate fraud.

An art dealer takes an offer she can’t refuse–a genuine legend of old Istanbul–and finds herself swept up in ancient intrigues and rivalries.

A slacker finds his life forever changed after an act of urban terrorism gives him the ability to see djinn–and they’re just the start.

A young marketing graduate has five days to save a family nanotechnology start-up with a new product that may just change the world.

Over the space of five days of an Istanbul heat wave, these lives weave a story of corporate wheeling and dealing, Islamic mysticism, political and economic intrigues, ancient Ottoman mysteries, a terrifying new terrorist threat, and a nanotechnology with the potential to transform every human on the planet.