Joan Margaret Fleming (1908–1980) was a British writer, turning out children’s stories first and then moving on to crime fiction, publishing about 30 books in that field. Her novel The Deeds of Dr Deadcert (Hutchinson, 1955) was made into the film Rx Murder (1958), and she won the Crime Writers’ Association Red Herring award for When I Grow Rich (Collins, 1962) and the Gold Dagger award for Young Man I Think You’re Dying (Collins, 1970). She seems to have rarely used the same characters from book to book, and they vary from thrillers to mysteries to gothics.

In When I Grow Rich, Fleming introduces a character that many of us would like to know. Nuri Bey lives alone in a ramshackle house and studies philosophy of all kinds. He loves his books so much that he sleeps with some of his favorites. His house is rundown and in need of considerable repair but he prefers to spend his small income on his books, many of which are quite rare. He has a large bag with the most valuable of his books that he keeps near his front door. In case of fire, which is all too likely in such an old house, he can grab it on his way out to safety.

As is often the case with individuals who spend more time with books than with people, Nuri Bey is naïve. He doesn’t realize that Madame Miasma, an elderly relic from the last Sultan’s harem, is using him as a drug courier when she asks him to take a package to the airport to hand off to a young man waiting for it there. Jenny Bolton, a young English woman, ends up with the package that Nuri Bey delivered, and he wants to know why she has it.

The two become caught in Madame Miasma’s desperate moves to retrieve the package, which Jenny threw into the Bosporus to avoid further trouble. Their movements to evade Madame Miasma, who is well named, take them around Istanbul, allowing Fleming to serve as tourist guide to the historic city. There is an intricate plot thread involving the substitution of bodies and woven throughout is a good deal about the people and culture.

Anthony Boucher, critic for the New York Times Book Review, loved Fleming’s books and called this one “My one single favorite book of the year.” I love it for the characters, who are so complete it is hard to think they are not real people. While Jenny and Nuri are an unlikely duo, they work well together in the end. The description of Istanbul is fascinating, although I could have done without the frequent references to starving kittens and the account of the public hanging. The dust jackets for various editions of this title are especially good. An unusual piece of crime fiction and one well worth reading.