The Topkapi Secret - Hardcover

Terry Kelhawk

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1616142138 ISBN 13: 9781616142131

Publisher: Prometheus, 2010

Synopsis

A fourteen-hundred year old cover up... All who threaten this secret die... A race through the Middle East to uncover evidence buried in plain sight... Cultures clash and emotions soar as Arab researcher Mohammed Atareek and American professor Angela Hall race away from death toward discovery. Will they succeed in their journey to expose the truth, or will the opposition terminate them first? On display with in the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul lies the Topkapi Codex - an ancient manuscript of the Koran involved in the murder that split the Shiite from the Sunni. What's the truth about the Codex? Is their blood on it's pages? Are its contents the same as the modern Koran's? No one know because the Topkapi Codex is strictly off-limits. Mohammed Atareek is obsessed with getting his hands on this mysterious manuscript. His research has convinced him that the Koran has been changed many times, and the text of the famous codex could prove it. But other scholars are turning up dead. Did they share his conviction? Should he expose himself to their risk? Angel Hall, a UC Berkley English professor, married money and kept it; but lost the marriage, most of her family, and a friend under traumatic circumstances. On top of that, she makes a career move that puts her in the Middle East, and right in Mohammed's path. His overconfident, witty, and impulsive personality is both puzzling and refreshing to Angela. But when Mohammed tries to engage her in his quest, he finds she has an agenda of her own. Cat and mouse games, heated discussions, and sparks of romance inevitably ensue. Based on solid historical research, this exciting debut novel features a page-turning plot, a startling conclusion, and many eye-opening facts about the origins of the Koran.

About this title

About the Author

Terry Kellhawk is the pen name of a writer who has spent decades researching Middle Eastern cultures and Islam.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Topkapi Secret

A Novel By Terry Kelhawk

Prometheus Books

Copyright © 2010 Terry Kelhawk
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61614-213-1

Chapter One

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO March 31, 2006

"I can't see!" Angela cried out.

Angela Hall had never been in a sandstorm. Like most people, she relegated such phenomena to the Sahara Desert. She could not even imagine a sandstorm in Marrakech. So she was caught by surprise when the bright blue Moroccan skies clouded with sand.

Angela's contact lenses were grinding the sand into her eyes, and it hurt. Sand was everywhere. It was seeping into the folds of her clothing and chafing her skin. True dermabrasion. Her face had never felt anything like this before.

Breathing was difficult. Against her will, her eyelids kept pressing down against the onslaught of the sand. Angela reached for Fatima's arm, feeling frustrated, dependent; however, she had no choice but to rely on another. At that moment Fatima stepped into the street to flag a taxi. Angela grabbed at air. Blinking, she stumbled and nearly fell.

Once the taxi came into view, Fatima could see that it was occupied. It sped by, heedless of their plight.

Taxis disappear like mirages when a sandstorm hits Marrakech. The lucky and the experienced grab one quickly or get off the streets. Fatima was experienced. But neither woman was lucky that day. By the time the sand had come, they were poorly situated for taxi grabbing.

A few minutes earlier, before the storm hit, they had ambled peacefully along, discussing the gardens of Marrakech.

"Menara's nice, but I prefer La Majorelle," Angela had said. "It has a lush, secluded feeling, with its paths winding through palms and bougainvilleas."

"But Menara's grander," replied Fatima. "It reminds me of a small Taj Mahal, the way the pavilion reflects in the water."

"And the way the sultans tossed their concubines into it every morning?" Angela asked, referring to the notorious practice of the sultans of Marrakech. "Did you ever wonder if they could swim?"

Fatima, a defender of women's rights, ignored this, saying, "I prefer it today, with families picnicking under olive trees, and happy children playing."

Like most Arabs, Fatima struggled in distinguishing her p and b sounds in English. But her accent was mellifluous, for she was of the educated Moroccan elite who speak French better than Arabic.

Fatima nudged Angela's elbow and challenged her in return. "And besides, who knows what mischief La Majorelle has seen-it's been owned by artists!"

"Good point. But La Majorelle definitely wins for color-cobalt blue walls and pots-like the color of the Moroccan sky," Angela said, palm up in demonstration.

Fatima looked up. "At this moment, the sky looks more gray than blue."

When they had arrived at Menara Park, the weather had been fine. The skies were still clear when they left, so Angela and Fatima proceeded on foot to the open-air marketplace of Jemaa al-Fna.

But the weather rapidly changed.

"For some reason I will feel safer when we are inside the ramparts of the city," Fatima said. She knew what could happen when the clouds and wind met in this way.

Sand started kicking up around them. Within a few minutes, it went from nuisance to menace.

They had gone two-thirds of the way along the avenue and were approaching the twelfth-century walls-the oldest in Morocco.

A second taxi passed, but when they flagged it down, someone else pushed in first.

Sand brings out the grit in people.

"It's OK," Fatima spoke over the wind, directly into Angela's ear. Then she pulled her hijab over her nose and mouth. "Just hold on to me. We're getting close to the wall. We can go through it at Bab el-jedid. That is near La Mamounia, and there are always taxis at that hotel. If not, we can go inside for tea and wait."

Angela could see little through her tearing eyes, just a blur where her feet used to be. Any encouragement was welcome.

They had visited the gardens of La Mamounia yesterday. That legendary spot now loomed as paradise itself: Arabic art deco architecture; Winston Churchill painting in the gardens. She wasn't sure which sounded better-a taxi to her room in fifteen minutes or tea in paradise immediately.

Unfortunately, she was not to have either. At least not in the time or context of her choosing.

She bent over and clung to Fatima's jelaba as if she were a little child.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Topkapi Secretby Terry Kelhawk Copyright © 2010 by Terry Kelhawk. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1616142138
• ISBN 13: 9781616142131
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 417