A man in search of his beloved, inexplicably vanished wife. Her half-brother is also missing, yet his newspaper columns continue to appear. A mysterious clue? For days, Galip, the hero of Orhan Pamuk, wanders through the vibrant upper and lower worlds of Istanbul, encountering pimps, dervishes, and con artists. Pamuk's novel and crime story is, like the city by the Bosporus, full of labyrinths; everything is symbolic. In his search, Galip delves into the mysteries of the city and his own past. "The city of Istanbul has found its master, just as Dublin did in James Joyce and Prague in Franz Kafka.".