Murder in Constantinople is an entertaining if mostly boilerplate mystery-adventure featuring the typical roguish hero and plucky, exotic love interest. You'll also find the requisite international espionage and masked ball scenes here, too, plus some bad American accents thrown in for good measure.

I enjoyed the descriptions of Constantinople as this is one of my favorite settings, and the hero's Jewish background was a fresh new take. Still, for a mystery novel, it could have been more mysterious. I can't recall a plot twist that was at all surprising. Unlike what you'd expect from a mystery, everything here is pretty much exactly as it seems. One culprit's identity was never even properly revealed. Meanwhile, the modern, police procedural dialogue felt anachronistic, and I frequently had to remind myself this was taking place in the 1850s. Also, as another reader pointed out, there's a reference to electric light bulbs which needs to be corrected.

The romance was a little understated and the epilogue dragged on, but otherwise, this was a decent read. There's potential here for a great series with some refinements.

Thanks to the publisher and author for the ARC!

It's 1854, and Jewish-raised Ben Canaan loves to get up to a little bit of trouble here and there. His father owns a tailor shop and wants his son to take over when it's time, but Ben most definitely has different ideas. When going with his father on a job to measure a well-to-do man, he finds a photograph of a beautiful woman and a strange letter, both of which eventually lead him to Constantinople.

This book is fun and the mystery contained within grips the reader. Ben is an amusing main character to follow, if not a bit naughty and wayward, but he is overall a good person. I enjoyed this book, but I did find that sometimes the history the book is based upon wasn't quite accurate and the characters language didn't completely fit their class roles in society and educational levels.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of this novel.

Murder in Constantinople by A.E. Goldin was an unexpected delight. From the blurb, I feared it might lean into the overly whimsical or derivative, but what I found instead was a rip-roaring historical adventure with a genuinely thoughtful and resonant core.

Set in 1850s London and later in the rich, dangerous sprawl of Constantinople, the story introduces Ben Canaan—restless, rebellious, and entirely compelling—as he stumbles into a deadly conspiracy that pulls him far from his East End roots. The mystery unfolds with the nostalgic flair of classic Holmesian tales, but with a refreshing new voice and cultural lens.

Goldin’s portrayal of the working-class Jewish community in Victorian London is especially well-rendered—empathetic, textured, and alive with detail. The subplot—balancing cultural identity with the pressure to assimilate—feels timeless and particularly poignant, not just for Jews but for any minority navigating a dominant culture.

Ben Canaan is a fantastic lead: flawed, impulsive, brave, and endearing. The supporting cast is colorful without being caricatured, and the twists are clever, sometimes shocking, but never cheap. It’s rare to find a debut this confident in tone and pacing, and Goldin delivers both the thrills of high-stakes espionage and the quiet impact of cultural introspection.

A few moments veer close to melodrama, and I might have wished for slightly more grounding in some of the political machinations of Constantinople—but these are minor quibbles in a novel that surprised and impressed me in equal measure.

Highly recommended for fans of historical mysteries, I can’t wait to see where Ben Canaan’s adventures take him next.

I was hooked from the tagline "Alfred Hitchcock meets Indiana Jones" and how it worked in this type of book. It uses the historical mystery element perfectly and that the plot was everything that I was hoping for. It was everything that I was wanting from this as a entry in the Ben Canaan Mystery series and hope there is more in this series. The characters were so well written and was invested in what was going on. A.E. Goldin wrote this so well and had that mystery element that I was looking for. I'm glad I got to read this and am excited to read more in this series and from A.E. Goldin.