Detective Mehmet Suleyman (Ethan Kai) is a stranger in a land he used to call home. He’s returned to Istanbul for reasons he’d rather not disclose – you’re right to raise a suspicious eyebrow at that – and now he’s trying to fit into a unit led by the larger-than-life Inspector Cetin Ikmen (Haluk Bilginer). The teenage fiancé of a wealthy businessman has been found murdered; he’s going to have to hit the ground running.
The Turkish Detective (based on the popular Inspector Ikmen novels by Barbara Nadel) is the kind of series that knows a good mystery requires three things: twisty plots, an interesting setting, and a lead detective we’re happy to follow through both the others. And why stop at one detective when you can have two?
L-R Ethan Kai as Mehmet Süleyman and Haluk Bilginer as Cetin Ikmen in 'The Turkish Detective'. Credit: Ali Güler / Miramax / Paramount Television Studios
One of the big challenges in this age of international television and easily accessible subtitles is explaining why everyone in your internationally-set drama is speaking English. Not explaining it feels like a cheat; any kind of lengthy or technical discussion slows things down. Here Suleyman’s Turkish is poor, so everyone (everywhere, at all times) speaks English. Sorted.
But the fact his Turkish skills are rusty just underlines the take-away from his first meeting with Ikmen: despite his background, Suleyman is not on his home turf. A skilled detective he may be, but his story is (in part) going to be a fish-out-of-water tale. And his lack of local knowledge is going to make the real reason why he returned even more difficult for him.
Haluk Bilginer as Inspector Ikmen. Credit: Ali Güler / Miramax / Paramount Television Studios
As for Ikmen, he couldn’t be more at home. He’s the kind of maverick who’s always on the side of the victims, happy to give his superiors a hard time and push his team past their limits because for him results are what matters. From a distance he might seem like an old warhorse past his prime, and up close his rough-around-the-edges charm is even more disarming, but he knows what he’s doing every step of the way.
Which would be a lot more reassuring if the mysteries they were investigating weren’t so tricky. Each investigation spans two episodes and not a second is wasted. Suspects lead to new suspects, theories come up and are thrown out, nothing is quite what it seems and around every corner (or just on social media) lurks the chance for a crime to suddenly turn personal for Ikman or one of his team.
And they both have rich personal lives ready for their work to get entangled with. Despite pushing retirement age, Ikman has just become a new father with his second wife: his previous children, now well into their teens, aren’t exactly overjoyed that their father now has something else, aside from his job, to distract him from them. As for Suleyman, his personal life unfolds across the course of the series; let’s just say his reason for returning is both personal and one that leads him into an investigation of his own.
Mehmet Süleyman (Ethan Kai) races through the streets of Istanbul. Credit: Ali Güler / Miramax / Paramount Television Studios
The Turkish Detective was filmed on location in Istanbul, and the series makes good use of a setting we rarely see explored in the West. It’s more than just an eye-catching backdrop, even if our detectives and their team cover everything from the crowded markets and commercial streets to the top end of town.
Wherever their investigation takes them, it’s always home territory for the rarely ruffled Ikman, just as it’s always exotic and surprising – at first – for Suleyman. The city is always alive around them but it never distracts from the mystery; Ikman’s matter-of-fact approach keeps things grounded when Suleyman threatens to get distracted, and Suleyman’s fresh eyes pick up things that his more jaded counterparts might overlook.
Together they’re the perfect guides to a lively and complicated city – which also makes them the perfect detectives to tackle a string of always surprising cases. Intrigue, mystery, and a surprise around almost every corner: Istanbul just became a crime fan’s ideal holiday destination.
The Turkish Detective is streaming at SBS On Demand.
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The Turkish Detective
