The Istanbul Puzzle by Laurence O'Bryan .

Alek, a photographer is beheaded in Istanbul. A video of his murder is posted on You Tube. Sean Ryan, who works with Alek, tries to find out why he was killed.

There is a nice mix of chapters in this book, with the bad guys having a brief one to keep the reader in the loop and longer chapters written in the first person as Sean tries to solve this mystery. This novel has a good plot where you read what the bad guys are up to something but Alek got in the way. With Sean investigating what went wrong, will he become a victim?

I enjoyed reading this book which is a good conspiracy tale. It is very thought provoking with a realistic scenario. The story is very current day and has an engaging plot involving the war on terror. The reader develops a good expectation that Sean will discover just what Alek had found. But a find worth killing for? You learn to understand Sean's motivation and thoughts because most people would abandon this dangerous search to solve the mystery...

What his father told him afterwards had stuck in his mind; when you’ve done things that can never be forgiven, you become free, because you can never go back, never undo them.

...The story is very realistic with lots of knowledgeable background thrown in...

Heathrow Airport, Terminal 5, the largest free-standing building in the UK, looked as busy the following morning as it had during the nightmare snow storm the previous winter.

The report confirmed the existence of a Yersina Pestis bacterium in the doctor’s blood. That fact alone would not be enough to ring warning bells. Every year many thousands of cases of plague ended up being reported to the World Health Organisation.

... The ending of this story was well explained and reasoned. This book raises issues of fear within our society...

‘Today,’ he began, dispensing with any opening pleasantries, ‘the Muslim faith is the fastest growing of all Europe’s religions. By some projections, within some of your lifetimes, it will be the faith of the majority, given the comparative birth rates. An Islamic Europe may not aspire to tolerance, either. It may well be fundamentalist. And they don’t usually take kindly to dissent. When they offer your granddaughter a burqa, she may have to put it on.’

‘People used to believe the world was full of evil spirits,’ I said. ‘They had no other way to explain things they didn’t understand. That’s my explanation for evil spirits. And I’m sticking to it.’

...The Istanbul Puzzle was written in 2011 and I purchased the 1631 KB Amazon Kindle version. I thought it was a good book and I shall vote it 4 stars on Goodreads .