The Mystic and the Warrior (Hardcover) – by Michael Banister

Who was the man who called himself Shamsuddin? In post-war Valletta, on the island of Malta, he lived in a part of the city that still hadn’t recovered from the destruction of World War Two. In 1955, Shamsuddin lived in a bombed-out post office and sold antiques and other valuable items. When a group of five young men from Istanbul paid a visit looking for such things they had heard Shamsuddin could sell them, the parting gifts he provided them were much more than gifts—the young men soon discovered they couldn’t bear to be without them.
Forty years later, Shamsuddin’s business had radically changed. He had allied himself with Turgut Evren, a Colonel in the Turkish military. Each man had a hidden agenda—hidden from society and hidden from each other. And the five men who were no longer young? What was their destiny in this evolving story?