Review
Acclaim for Michael Pearce and the Mamur Zapt novels:
‘Pearce takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour’
John Coleman, Sunday Times
‘Marvellously convoluted… Dryly and deeply funny’
Philip Oakes, Literary Review
Product Description
The latest novel in Michael Pearce’s award-winning series, set in the Egypt of the 1900s. ‘Irresistible fun’ Time Out
The world is changing around the Mamur Zapt, British Chief of Cairo’s Secret Police. It’s 1912 and there’s a war on that no one’s ever heard of. A man is killed. Is this an attempt at – or the beginning, perhaps – of some kind of ethnic cleansing? ‘One of us’ Morelli may have been, but was he ‘one of us’ enough? And were the guns in his warehouse anything to do with it? Gareth Owen – the Mamur Zapt – has to find out fast.
And then, as external pressures crowd in, there are other difficult questions. What is Trudi von Ramsberg really doing in Cairo? Not to mention that other noted traveller, Gertrude Bell, or the irritating little archaeologist, T. E. Lawrence? And why has the post of Khedive’s Librarian suddenly become so important?
Owen is just the man to solve these problems. He is less successful, though, with his relationship to Zeinab, especially now that she’s approaching thirty.
As Cromer’s Egypt gives way to Kitchener’s Egypt, Morelli is not the only one who has problems over where his allegiance lies. Maybe the solution is for Owen to go to Zanzibar…
From the Back Cover
The world is changing around the Mamur Zapt, British Chief of Cairo's Secret Police. It's 1912 and there's a war on that no one's heard of. When an Italian man is murdered in the city's back streets, there is concern that this could be some kind of ethnic cleansing. 'One of us' Morelli may have been, but was he 'one of us' enough? And were the guns in his warehouse anything to do with it? Gareth Owen – the Mamur Zapt – has to find out fast.
And then, as external pressures crowd in, there are other difficult questions. What is Trudi von Ramsberg 'really' doing in Cairo? Not to mention that other noted traveller, Gertude Bell, or the irritating little arch-aeologist, T.E.Lawrence? And why has the post of Khedive's Librarian suddenly become so important?
Owen is just the man to solve these problems. He is less successful, though, in his relations-ship with Zeinab, especially now that she's approaching thirty.
As Cromer's Egypt gives way to Kitchener's Egypt, Morelli is not the only one who has problems over where his allegiance lies. Maybe the solution is for Owen to go to Zanzibar…
About the Author
Michael Pearce grew up in the (then) Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He returned there later to teach, and retains a human rights interest in the area. He has recently retired from his academic post to write full time.
