I wonder if people are aware of the huge influence the Ottoman Empire had on the world, as we know it. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the Ottoman Empire lasted from around the time of the Crusades until the end of World War One. At one time they controlled all the territory from Turkey along the Mediterranean to Spain; most of the Balkan States including Greece; North Africa, Egypt, the Gulf States, and of course Israel.

Part of that legacy comprises all the Dracula stories. It was the Moors — as they were sometimes referred to — of the Ottoman Empire that Vlad the Impaler slaughtered by the bucket load. After the Empire was forced from Spain, the border between East and West was Bulgaria and the Danube River. At one point, the Empire made it all the way to the gates of Vienna, Austria before being turned back by troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

If you lived in the Balkans, either the Turks or the Austro-Hungarians were constantly liberating you until the 19th century. If you ever wondered where the Muslims came from in Bosnia during the ethnic cleansing of the mid 1990s, it was because of the Ottoman Empire. Although it had been well over a hundred years since they had ruled that part of the world, nationalistic hatreds seem to have no shelf life.

So when I found out that British author Jon Courtenay Grimwood had set The Arabesk Trilogy in a world where the Empire has survived until modern times, it was only natural I was intrigued. Since it hasn't been released in Canada yet, the good folk at Random House U.S. were kind enough to send me review copies ahead of the Canadian release date.

In Pashazade, the first book of the series, Grimwood introduces us to not only the characters who will be populating the pages of the trilogy, but his version of how the world turned out after World War One. The Kaiser's temporary advisors to the Sultan still haven't left, but all in all the treaty of 1916 between Germany and the Ottoman Empire has worked out quite well for the Turks. They are able to rule independently in North Africa and follow their own traditional social structure.

The majority of the action takes place in the capital city of the new Empire, El Iskandryia, affectionately known by those who love and despise her as El Isk. It's everything you'd want from a capital city of the East. Part free city like Tunisia in the 1950's with a thriving multinational population of tourists, spies, and even an American chief of police. However, it's first and foremost a Muslim city; with formal manners, exquisite taste, and an aesthetic sensibility the west can never hope to obtain on the surface, and a seething cesspool of crime and deep-seated passions just below the surface.