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Murder in Istanbul: Jamal Khashoggi, Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia
On 2 October 2018, Saudi-royal courtier and writer Jamal Khashoggi was trapped by his palace peers into entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Once there, he was killed in cold blood in the consul-general’s library in one of the world’s most infamous conspiracies of the twenty-first century. His body was dismembered by palace officials in fifteen parts and packed into five suitcases that were left at the consul-general’s home.
Using Turkish sources, Murder in Istanbul reconstructs the execution of the plot in rigorous detail and reveals how the assassination was connected to the president of the United States, Donald Trump, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and their orbit — including president of Russia Vladimir Putin – as well as the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and tragic death of Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury. The courtier’s murder had far-reaching consequences and several world figures became the sworn enemies of the brutal de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Mohammed, during the aftermath of the conspiracy.
Despite the eye-watering forensic facts that have become public about the devious plot, the most gruesome part of the events at the consulate has yet to come to light.
288 pages, Paperback
Published September 12, 2019
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April 15, 2020
Where to begin with this book? There was so much wrong with it, it is hard to know where to start. But let me say that the critique is not about the subject matter at all. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was a heinous act by Saudi Arabia which has been obfuscated, lied about and covered up. It shows the level of authoritarianism in a regime not known for its tolerance and the incident itself should make anyone who dreams of a world where people are free to offer reasoned critiques without fear for their lives angry beyond words.
So let's turn to the book. The two stars are based on one star for bringing the incident to light and half a star for effort which I am being generous and rounding up. But the problems begin right from the title. First of all, the mention of Donald Trump in the title is utterly irrelevant. Someone picking up the book might believe that within the pages they were going to find an expose of a collaboration between the Saudis and Trump in regards to the murder but in fact, aside from a few virtually irrelevant quotes, the American President barely rates a mention in the book. It would be better off titled "Jamal Khashoggi, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Saudi Arabia" but perhaps the publishers felt that wouldn't sell as many books.
Then comes the claim on the front of the book that the edition has been 'Updated and Expanded 3-Fold'. Well, it was 3-fold too long! It was filled with rambling repetition which became so annoying that it was difficult to keep going at times. If the author mentioned that Maggie Salem Mitchell ran the Qatar Foundation International one more time I might have screamed. Yes! We know! You mentioned it the first time her name came up, and the next, and the next, and the next and so on and so on. In fact, almost every name that was mentioned (and there were lots, and they were all brought up many, many times) had a redundant descriptor that could only have been inserted to try to pad out words. Frankly, if you didn't remember that Hatice Cengiz was Khashoggi's fiance from the first mention, telling us 27 more times wasn't going to help.
Then came the editing - or total lack of. I can't remember ever reading another book with so many spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and even sentences which just stop, midway, without actually being finished. I gather this was because the publishers were trying to rush the book out so as to be 'timely' but all it ended up with was a completely sloppy, unedited final draft.
Structure and narrative was totally lacking. Rather than weaving a story like really good non-fiction should, the book rambled, jumping back and forth, adding in confusing and irrelevant details and repeating the same details over and over again. I recognise that the incident itself was confusing and rife with false statements, fake news, lies and cover-ups, but that doesn't mean that the book had to follow suit. If the author had pulled his thoughts together in an orderly fashion, and his editor had actually done a proper editorial job, this might have achieved what it set out to do - bring to light an awful event.
Basically, this book was rushed out, I assume so that it could be the 'first' book out on the topic and as a result, it was terrible. I'm sure the author worked hard on the research, but that work was completely undermined by everything else. This would have made a great long form essay, with a pithy narrative and a selection of relevant facts which would still have conveyed the confusion of the whole incident without wasting good paper. Sometimes getting a whole book out on a topic is not the right thing to do. This is a great example of a publisher trying to capitalise on something and failing.
So let's turn to the book. The two stars are based on one star for bringing the incident to light and half a star for effort which I am being generous and rounding up. But the problems begin right from the title. First of all, the mention of Donald Trump in the title is utterly irrelevant. Someone picking up the book might believe that within the pages they were going to find an expose of a collaboration between the Saudis and Trump in regards to the murder but in fact, aside from a few virtually irrelevant quotes, the American President barely rates a mention in the book. It would be better off titled "Jamal Khashoggi, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Saudi Arabia" but perhaps the publishers felt that wouldn't sell as many books.
Then comes the claim on the front of the book that the edition has been 'Updated and Expanded 3-Fold'. Well, it was 3-fold too long! It was filled with rambling repetition which became so annoying that it was difficult to keep going at times. If the author mentioned that Maggie Salem Mitchell ran the Qatar Foundation International one more time I might have screamed. Yes! We know! You mentioned it the first time her name came up, and the next, and the next, and the next and so on and so on. In fact, almost every name that was mentioned (and there were lots, and they were all brought up many, many times) had a redundant descriptor that could only have been inserted to try to pad out words. Frankly, if you didn't remember that Hatice Cengiz was Khashoggi's fiance from the first mention, telling us 27 more times wasn't going to help.
Then came the editing - or total lack of. I can't remember ever reading another book with so many spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and even sentences which just stop, midway, without actually being finished. I gather this was because the publishers were trying to rush the book out so as to be 'timely' but all it ended up with was a completely sloppy, unedited final draft.
Structure and narrative was totally lacking. Rather than weaving a story like really good non-fiction should, the book rambled, jumping back and forth, adding in confusing and irrelevant details and repeating the same details over and over again. I recognise that the incident itself was confusing and rife with false statements, fake news, lies and cover-ups, but that doesn't mean that the book had to follow suit. If the author had pulled his thoughts together in an orderly fashion, and his editor had actually done a proper editorial job, this might have achieved what it set out to do - bring to light an awful event.
Basically, this book was rushed out, I assume so that it could be the 'first' book out on the topic and as a result, it was terrible. I'm sure the author worked hard on the research, but that work was completely undermined by everything else. This would have made a great long form essay, with a pithy narrative and a selection of relevant facts which would still have conveyed the confusion of the whole incident without wasting good paper. Sometimes getting a whole book out on a topic is not the right thing to do. This is a great example of a publisher trying to capitalise on something and failing.
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