Set in Istanbul in the 1500s, this book wanders between fact and fiction. The main character is Jahan, a kidnapped child who arrives in Istanbul on board a ship with a greedy captain and a sick elephant. He bluffs his way into becoming the elephant's trainer in the menagerie of the Sultan Suleiman. When he and the elephant are on a military campaign the pair catch the eye of the Royal Architect, Sinan, who takes the boy on as an apprentice. This is a fairly long book that reads like a series of related vignettes, in which Jahan witnesses battles, befriends the only daughter of the Sultan, and helps with the construction of some of the era's greatest buildings including the Suleymaniye Mosque, the Sehzade Mosque and the Mihriman Mosque. There is an overarching plot surrounding a hidden enemy of the great architect, which wasn't very well developed and which I didn't find myself particularly engaged in. The lack of cohesion in this narrative thread gave the book a meandering feel, as events took place one after the other, often unrelated, as they are in life. However, I loved just reading about the daily life of Istanbul enough that I still enjoyed the book as a whole.