When I Grow Rich: A Nuri Bey Mystery
Set in Istanbul, this mystery turns a chance sighting and a simple handoff into a much larger incident. Centered on Nuri Bey, it builds a chain of unpredictable clues while drawing strength from its sense of place and cultural texture.
Work Information
An ordinary errand pulls the whole city atmosphere into the mystery.
"When I Grow Rich" by Joan Fleming is one volume in the Nuri Bey series, set in Istanbul and built around a chance encounter that grows into a tangled conspiracy. The atmosphere of the foreign city, the sharpness of the dialogue, and the brisk movement of the plot combine to give it the momentum of a classic mystery.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Dover Publications
- Published
- 2018-09-12
- Pages
- 208 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.97 x 1.91 x 22.23 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780486825618
- ISBN-10
- 0486825612
- Price
- 8729 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Mystery & Thrillers/Mystery
"My one single favorite book of the year." — Anthony Boucher, Edgar Award-winning critic for The New York Times Book Review Turkish philosopher and scholar Nuri Bey lives for his books and longs to study at Oxford. His dream is unattainable without the help of his rich patron, Madame Miasma, so when she asks Bey to deliver a parcel to a friend of hers, he readily agrees. The simple-sounding favor leads to Bey's unwitting participation in a fateful string of events, from an airport shootout with members of an international drug smuggling ring to his sudden and unexpected involvement with a rootless British teenager. This atmospheric tale of murder and suspense unfolds in Istanbul, which provides a vivid backdrop of minarets, mosques, and the Bosphorus, the dark and winding waterway that bisects the city. Winner of the 1962 Gold Dagger award from the British Crime Writers' Association, it colorfully portrays the differences between British and Turkish sensibilities in the 1960s. The story reflects a society at the crossroads of Europe and Asia that's caught between a proud sultanic past and a compelling modern future.
Joan Fleming (1908–80) twice received the Gold Dagger Award for Best Novel, awarded by the British Crime Writers' Association, for When I Grow Rich in 1962 and for Young Man, I Think You're Dying in 1970. Fleming published five children's books before her first adult crime novel, 1949's Two Lovers Too Many, after which she wrote more than 30 other books in the genre. Her novel The Deeds of Dr. Deadcert was the basis for the 1958 film Rx for Murder.
Reviews
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As sometimes happens, this is categorized as a genre novel when it is actually literary fiction. Rather than a "mystery" this is a study of intercultural communication, set in Istanbul, and at the same time both shocking and funny. An absorbing book, a wonderful author. Nuri Bey is a wonderful character, and I only wish there were more of him. His only other appearance is in Nothing is the Number When you Die. Also an interesting book - from the perspective of Nuri Bey in England for most of that book. So glad new editions have been brought out of both of these books. Joan Fleming deserves wider readership.
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Fleming created a most engaging hero in Nuri bey, attractive, tolerant, patient beyond belief. But the people he chooses to be loyal to are monsters in their different ways, and his involvement with them is based on his unexamined notions of his own self-interest. His unraveling of a murder and other crimes is absorbing, the book well written. I remain uncertain how much of the author's views of Istanbul and Turkish life can be relied on, but they are certainly colorfully drawn.
Related Literary Awards
- CWA KAA Gold Dagger Edition 8 (1962) ・Winner