The Face in the Cemetery (A Mamur Zapt mystery) [Hardcover]

‘Probably the best in a consistently entertaining series … Pearce makes serious comedy out of living history. His touch remains light; his dialogue effervescent. His characters, though, have acquired painful substance. The fresco that he assembles kicks like a chorus line; but this time with feeling’ Philip Oakes, Literary Review

Acclaim for Michael Pearce and the Mamur Zapt novels:

‘For contrast and sheer entertainment, Michael Pearce’s A Cold Touch of Ice is one of the best in his Mamur Zapt series… As always, his characters and the city itself are full of life and the dialogue… is excellent. Highly recommended’ Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph

‘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

The latest novel in Michael Pearce’s award-winning series, set in the Egypt of the 1900s. ‘Irresistible fun’ Time Out

Egypt, 1914. It is the beginning of the war and Gareth Owen, Mamur Zapt and Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, is unhappily rounding up enemy aliens. But nationality is a slippery thing in cosmopolitan Egypt. Who counts as German? And whose is the face in the cemetery?

Owen would prefer to have to answer neither of these questions. He is preoccupied with missing guns (missing? in war time?) and dubious ghaffirs. Villages usually pick Dogberry-type simpletons as their watchmen. But what are these toughs doing here? And this heavily-armed, thumb-sucking girl?

The face in the cat cemetery, though, refuses to go away and Owen comes to realise that it poses questions which are not just professional but also uncomfortably personal.

Egypt, 1914. It is the beginning of the war and Gareth Owen, Mamur Zapt and Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, is unhappily rounding up enemy aliens. But nationality is a slippery thing in cosmopolitan Egypt. Who counts as German? And whose is the face in the cemetery?

Owen would prefer to have to answer neither of these questions. He is preoccupied with missing guns (missing? in war time?) and dubious ghaffirs. Villages usually pick Dogberry-type simpletons as their watchmen. But what are these toughs doing here? And this heavily-armed, thumb-sucking girl?

The face in the cat cemetery, though, refuses to go away and Owen comes to realise that it poses questions which are not just professional but also uncomfortably personal.

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.