Murder in Constantinople was published by Pushkin Press in hardback in the U.K. in September 2024 and paperback in June 2025. The book launched a series commissioned by Pushkin following the exploits of Ben Canaan, an East End tailor’s son and petty criminal, who over the course of a gripping series of historical thrillers, becomes a detective to rival Sherlock Holmes.
The UK publication received 5-star reviews and was selected as “Pick of the Month” in The Financial Times, The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Literary Review and Glamour Magazine.
In October 2025, Pushkin Press published Murder in Constantinople in North America and released it globally on audiobook. North American distribution was through Penguin Random House and the audiobook was produced and released by Tantor Media, with award-winning narrator Liam Gerrard.
The second book in the series, Death on the Pearl River, follows Ben’s adventures from Constantinople to China, and will be published by Pushkin Press in 2026.
Murder in Constantinople
Published by Pushkin Press, September 2024
London, 1854. Twenty-one-year-old Ben Canaan attracts trouble wherever he goes. His father wants him to be a good Jewish son, working for the family business on Whitechapel Road, but Ben and his friends, the ‘Good-for-Nothings’, just want adventure.
Then the discovery of an enigmatic letter and a photograph of a beautiful woman offer an escapade more dangerous than anything he’d imagined. Suddenly Ben is thrown into a mystery that takes him all the way to Constantinople, the jewel of an empire and the centre of a world on the brink of war.
His only clue is three words: ‘The White Death’. Now he must find what links a string of grisly murders, following a trail through kingmaking and conspiracy, poison and high politics, bloodshed and betrayal. In a city of deadly secrets, no one is safe – and one wrong step could cost Ben his life.
U.K. Hardback (September 2024)
U.K. Paperback (June 2025)
U.S. Paperback (October 2025)
