Müştak Serhazin, last scion of the Serhazin clan. A man who has been waiting for years for one woman, his life wasted on one grandiose love. On his love for an ambitious, indomitable woman who has dedicated her life to the study of Ottoman history... A professor with an outstanding career, one studded with triumphs and achievements, found dead, stabbed with a letter-opener featuring an engraving of the seal of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror... Is it a crime of passion or a murder with roots that stretch back to the suspicious death of the great Sultan Mehmed himself? An epic journey back in time to the heady days of victory and betrayal when the Ottoman state became a global empire. And an ancient question haunting us throughout this exhilarating journey: is history the events of the past or is it what the historians tell us