Murder in Constantinople

Screenwriter Goldin debuts with an overstuffed historical adventure set in London and Constantinople on the eve of the Crimean War. Ben Canaan is a disgruntled 21-year-old whose dreams of attending university were dashed when he was forced to work in his Jewish family’s tailor shop on Whitechapel Road. His disdain for the arrangement has led him to team up with two equally restless friends to form a group of adventure-seekers called the Good-for-Nothings. Ben stumbles into the sort of excitement the group is after when he finds a daguerreotype of a young woman he was in love with years ago inside a suit at his family’s shop, along with a mysterious letter that reads “The White Death – more to come – trust no one.” The return address on the letter is in Constantinople, so Ben sets off for the city, where his search for his lost love entangles him in multiple murder investigations, a political assassination attempt, and a plot to distribute a mysterious, deadly poison. Goldin writes with a certain swashbuckling charm, but anachronisms abound, and the proliferation of subplots gets in the way of character development. Despite a promising start, this exhausts more than it entertains. (Oct.)