Turkey is or was a great place to start a bicycle trip, as I found a few years back, when I started with a girl friend (subsequently my wife) from Izmir (ancient Smyrna) down the gorgeous Anatolian coast. A couple of cyclists was a novel sight for the inhabitants. Cruise ships, yes; solitary cyclists no. The classical sites, the scenery, the friendly people -- all made for an unforgettable trip.
Intrigued by the stories, half legendary, half authentic, of Croesus -- the alledgedly fabulously rich king of what is now south-west Turkey -- I wrote the noveL.
Here is a resumé:
While touring the classical sites of south-western Turkey during the early 1980s the beautiful American wife of a rich dealer in Middle Eastern artifacts finds herself mysteriously stranded in Ephesus, and obliged to seek help from a Scottish archaeologist who faces the even more puzzling – and graver – problem of having just killed in self-defence an unknown assailant. Subsequent events assume a disquieting resemblance to those in a tale, half history, half myth, concerning a beautiful and murderous queen, her lover, and the fate of Croesus, last king of the region.
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