Barbara Nadel

English crime writer

Barbara Nadel is an English crime writer. Many of her books are set in Turkey, others in London's East End. She is best known for her Istanbul set Çetin İkmen novels.

Born in the East End of London, Barbara Nadel trained as an actress before becoming a writer. Now writing full time, she has previously worked as a public relations officer for the National Schizophrenia Fellowship's Good Companion Service and as a mental health advocate for the mentally disordered in a psychiatric hospital. She has also worked with sexually abused teenagers and taught psychology in schools and colleges, and was the patron of The Acorn Group in Shrewsbury, a charity (now apparently closed following a cut in funding) caring for those in emotional and mental distress. She has been a regular visitor to Turkey for more than 25 years. Until late 2014, Nadel lived in "the wilds of the north of England" with her husband and six axolotls, her "very demanding Persian cat" having died on 23 December 2011, but then moved from the Pennines to "a small village in Essex just outside London". Her son is a comic book writer.

Nadel is best known for her series about Çetin İkmen, a chain smoking and hard drinking detective on the Istanbul police force, and his colleagues Mehmet Süleyman, Balthazar Cohen, and Armenian pathologist Arto Sarkissian. These have been translated into a number of languages, including Turkish, and have been released as audiobooks in English and German. Her second crime series, set in West Ham in the East End of London, during The Blitz, features undertaker Francis Hancock. In January 2011, Quercus announced the signing of Ms Nadel to write a new crime series set in the modern day East End, to be published starting Summer 2012 under the name B J Nadel, although the published book A Private Business, was ultimately credited to Barbara Nadel. The book, and its sequels, focus on private investigator Lee Arnold and his Muslim assistant Mumtaz Hakim. Publication moved to Allison & Busby from the fifth book in the series. Other published works include short stories in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, plus British magazines (My Weekly and Woman's Own), and travel pieces for British newspapers (The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Independent), and the US food magazine Saveur.

In June 2020, it was announced that Miramax TV and ViacomCBS International Studios would produce a television adaptation of the Çetin İkmen novels entitled The Turkish Detective. By April 2022, the project was greenlit for a full series of eight episodes, to be released on Paramount+. The series will be written by Ben Schiffer, and directed by Niels Arden Oplev. Acclaimed Turkish actor Haluk Bilginer will star as İkmen, alongside Ethan Kai as Mehmet Süleyman, and Yasemin Allen as Ayşe Farsakoğlu.