This cop is a true angel!
In When Pera Trees Whisper, Inspector Nevzat returns to his old beat, a steadily deteriorating neighborhood in Istanbul, to investigate a murder case. The locals, who respect him greatly, know him as the guardian angel of Beyoğlu.
This seems to be a uniquely Turkish attitude because, in our neck of the woods, he’d probably be spit on instead. And get this, it’s not just the average citizens who adore him—the rougher, more dubious elements do too. If, in any rough area around here, the boys were seen chatting so friendly with the fuzz, you’d likely whip out a gun on the spot, driven by deep suspicion.
Engin, the murder victim and a member of the mafia, was a real scumbag. When the narrator describes him in When Pera Trees Whisper first as an unfortunate man and then as a hapless soul in two consecutive sentences, you can’t help but start pondering the various synonyms for “pretentious.”