The Last Armenian Village

In The Last Armenian Village, a young American Navy lieutenant who spent his childhood in Istanbul, Turkey returns there in 1963 as the assistant U.S. Naval Attaché.

He meets and falls in love with a beautiful Armenian girl; and because of his ability to speak both Turkish and Russian, he is chosen by the CIA Station Chief for a clandestine mission which turns out to involve the girl, her family, and the family’s native village along the border between Turkey and the Soviet Union in what was once greater Armenia. What follows is an adventure in the wild reaches of far eastern Turkey, centered on an isolated Armenian mountain village largely forgotten by time. It is a story of lost treasure, Kurdish insurgency, and clandestine trips across the border into the Soviet Union.

The young lieutenant finds himself set up as the scapegoat in a plot that includes double-dealing, betrayal, and attempted murder – all followed by a CIA cover-up that lasts for decades.

T. DeReler is a pen name. The author has lived and traveled in the Near East at various times during the last nearly half-century. He lived in Istanbul during the timeframe of this novel and based much of the story on people and places he knew.

In 2006, he retired from teaching at the graduate-school level. He currently lives in the Eastern United States but continues to travel occasionally to the Near East.

Though he has published a number of professional articles, papers, and reviews, this is his first novel.