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This is a difficult one to assess as a whole. It is shorter than most of Pamuk's novels and mostly written in quite simple language. It is partly a story of modern Turkey and its politics, partly a study of father-son relationships and partly a retelling of Oedipus and the Persian legend Rostam and Sohrab. The story falls into three parts, each of which is quite distinct.

The first part is both the simplest and the easiest to like. The narrator Cem tells of a job he took after his father, who was involved in a left wing group, had disappeared and before his university entrance exams. This involved working as an apprentice to a traditional well-digger. The story describes the process of well-digging and Cem's relationship with his master, a father figure who tells him stories. Cem becomes obsessed with the red-haired woman of the title, and eventually discovers that she works in a travelling theatre with her husband. This part comes to a dramatic conclusion (view spoiler)[when he attends one of their performances, spends the night with her and consequently is the cause of an accident at the well the next day in which he believes his master to be dead. (hide spoiler)].

In the second part the older narrator continues the story and describes his progression, first in marrying, then by running a company that invests in developing new suburbs of Istanbul, one of which is the town in which the first part is set. (view spoiler)[The company becomes very successful, Cem discovers that his master survived and succeeded in finding water and completing the well, and that the red-haired woman was a former lover of his father, and the son of the red-haired woman claims that Cem is his father. This story also builds to a dramatic confrontation in which Cem is led by a man claiming to be his son's friend to see the well, eventually revealing himself as the son, leading to a fight in which Cem's gun is fired. So if the first part paralleled Oedipus, this is closer to Rostam and Sohrab. (hide spoiler)]

The third part is related by the red-haired woman, which made for an interesting change of perspective (view spoiler)[ but for me became too clever and self-referential. The son is in prison accused of Cem's murder, and she visits him and tells him her story and Cem's. She encourages him to write his father's story, which explains how the first two parts came to be written (hide spoiler)].

My problems were partly that Pamuk tried to do too much, and lost the wonderful directness of the first part, and partly that in order to retell the two legends, there was rather too much explanation of these before they are shown to prefigure the plot, thus rather destroying any surprise value as they are played out. These are minor quibbles - the book is a very enjoyable read.