Nicely done, well-written tale of State Department machinations in Istanbul as an American woman, her American photographer-lover and her Turkish real estate developer husband vie with the cultural attaché of the U.S. Embassy. The chronology was confusing, 2006-2013, but the descriptions of the city and the art were lively and true. Particularly well done protest march dissolving into chaos and the police interrogations afterwards.

"From their knees to their ankles the police wore greaves, and from their wrists to their elbows they wore gauntlets; they covered their torsos with breastplates, and all of it was made of a black carbon fiber that was tough as steel yet light as plastic. They tilted their weapons on their hips and cradled their white helmets in their overdeveloped biceps while they opened and closed the transparent visors on their face guards. With their chest-high riot shields leaning against them, they appeared like modern-day hoplites, men who were well practiced in old forms of violence. They smoked and laughed among themselves. Their superiors handed out fistfuls of tear-gas cartridges and bandoliers of rubber bullets from plywood crates."

"How it glimmers. Encased in glass, the renovated wing of the Istanbul Modern invites the light. During the day it shines and shines along the bank of the Bosphorus, radiating like a second sun. At night the boat lights, the bridge lights, even the passing gridlock along Cevdet Pasa Caddesi reflect kaleidoscopically from its windows, behind which a priceless mélange of contemporary and classic collections hang..." ( )