Readers' rating:
Published Oct 2019
448 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Empire of Lies is a sweeping thriller in the tradition of The Man in the High Castle, Fatherland, and Underground Airlines from New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury.
Istanbul, 1683: Mehmed IV, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, is preparing to lay siege to Vienna, capital of the Holy Roman Empire, when a mysterious visitor arrives in his bedroom―naked, covered in strange tattoos―to deliver a dangerous, world-changing message.
Paris, 2017: Ottoman flags have been flying over the great city for three hundred years, ever since its fall―along with all of Europe―to the empire's all-conquering army. Notre Dame has been renamed the Fatih Mosque. Public spaces are segregated by gender. And Kamal Arslan Agha, a feted officer in the sultan's secret police, is starting to question his orders.
Rumors of an impending war with the Christian Republic of America, attacks by violent extremists, and economic collapse have heightened surveillance and arrests across the empire. Tasked with surveying potential threats, Kamal has a heavy caseload―and conscience.
When a mysterious stranger―naked, covered in strange tattoos―appears on the banks of the Seine, Kamal is called in to investigate. But what he discovers is a secret buried in the empire's past, a secret the Sultan will do anything to silence.
With the mysterious Z Protectorate one step behind, Kamal, together with Nisreen―a fierce human rights lawyer―is caught up in a race across the empire and time itself―a race that could change their world, or destroy it.
Empire of Lies is being published as The Ottoman Secret in the UK.
"Alternate histories don't get much better than this thought-provoking mind bender...Superior and plausible worldbuilding matches an ingeniously imaginative conceit. This ranks as a classic of the genre." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"In Empire of Lies, Raymond Khoury has created an alternative history tale that will blow your mind. A story strung along the centuries that is thoroughly engrossing and one you will long remember." - David Baldacci
"Raymond Khoury's Empire of Lies is a tour de force in both storytelling and breadth of concept. It is not just an alternate history, but a cautionary tale that directly impacts and reflects upon our time. It is thrilling, disturbing, inspiring, and left me all too often in awe. This book will make you look at history―and your role in it―in an all new light. Be prepared to be forever impacted, forever changed." - James Rollins
"This is a masterpiece. A compelling saga, on a grand scale, with food for thought on every fascinating page. It's a breath of fresh air, an alternate history firing on all cylinders that will stay with you long after finishing. A stellar epic." - Steve Berry
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in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Sue McKay
Raymond Khoury was born in Lebanon but spent his teenage years in Rye, New York, where his family moved in 1975 to escape the Lebanese Civil War. After graduating from Rye Country Day School, he returned to Lebanon to study architecture at the American University of Beirut. During his years there, in between repeated flare-ups of fighting, he illustrated several children's books for Oxford University Press's Middle East office. Raymond completed his degree just as the civil war erupted again, and was evacuated out from the city in February, 1984, by the Marine Corp's 22nd Amphibious Unit on board a Chinook helicopter.
Raymond moved to London and joined a small architecture practice. The architecture scene in the mid-80s throughout much of Europe was going through a severe downturn, and ...
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