Two stories from the past and present intertwine and culminate in a baffling climax in this cinematic bestselling thriller from France
The Cairo Diary
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'An elegantly plotted and genuinely creepy read.' -- Independent's 50 Best Summer reads
Book Description
British-occupied Cairo, 1928: Several young children have disappeared and were then found, horribly mutilated, in the tombs just outside the city. Panic is spreading among the locals after a cloaked giant is sighted. Has a ghoul from One Thousand and One Nights been brought to life? British inspector Jeremy Matheson follows the trail of the monster, which takes him into the depths of underground Cairo as well as deep into his own tortured past. Mont-Saint-Michel, 2005: Marion has taken refuge in the wind-swept and remote monastery located on a spit of land on the west coast of France. In the wake of a scandal, caused by her own revelations, that is now reverberating through the French capital, she has been spirited away from Paris and brought here by the Secret Service for her own protection. When she finds a diary dating from 1928 in the monastery library, penned by Jeremy Matheson and hidden inside the jacket of an Edgar Allen Poe book, she is inexorably pulled into the past as she is being watched, and taunting notes and riddles urge her to give back what is not hers. . . ‘One of the best contemporary thriller authors’ Le Monde
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By Huck Flynn
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
I felt a bit cheated by Cairo Diary; there is much to admire in the two atmospheric settings of Cairo and Mont St Michel but these fail to hide the underlying flaws of a fairly thin plot and unconvincing resolution (in both cases). Perhaps the locations were selected with film rights in mind. The narrator Marion is an engaging heroine whose own story might have been more fruitfully explored - perhaps later in another book - but her discoveries in contemporary France are terribly implausible and the style is almost light hearted gothic when it should have been Name of the Rose menacing - the cryptic puzzle is a dead end and the finding of the manuscript is so coincidental. The Cairo part is strange - the exotic historic setting, the melodramatic language, some appalling dialogue - especially between Jeremy and his ex, and the Hammer horror frankenstein monster ghoul. The psychology of the story is just plain daft and the gruesome violence has a gratuitous feel. The character of Matheson is one dimensional Boy's Own and the strange device of Marion describing his memoirs in the third person instead of letting us hear his voice is another weakness. By the end we are left with a puzzle but little interest in solving it as there are too many loose ends. For a much more successful exercise in this sort of mystery I would recommend Charles Palliser's The Unburied or Nabakov's Pale Fire. Leave this one alone.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By CB
Format:Paperback
I read this on holiday with the absence of any other books to hand. A complete chore to read it; the most overblown prose combined with the worst written sex scenes I have ever had the misfortune to blush over. In fact I wrote "this is the worst book ever written" inside, and left it in the apartment as a dire warning for the next tourist who was as silly as I was, and came on holiday with nothing better to read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought The Cairo Diary because the plot sounded very unusual, the settings mysterious and fantastic being Cairo & Mont St Michel where I've visited myself on a school trip many years ago.
The book itself was quite entertaining as it switched back and forth between Cairo and Mont St Michel, the character of Marion was I think well thought out as she came across as less of a heroine and more of a real 40year old woman whose having time to reflect on her single state, lack of real friends and career choices which have brought her into hiding at the behest of the French Secret Service.
Unfortunatly the characters of Geoffrey Matheson & his ex-lover in the Cairo story are not well rounded at all and the conversations they have are more suited to a comic strip format in "Jackie Magazine" or "The Sun" Newspaper.
I don't think the books all bad to be honest as it was a very quick, light read and sometimes that's all you want in a book; as long as you don't work out who done it too early in the book (as I did) and you can ignore the Agatha Christie ending where Who did it is explained in great detail to tie up all the loose ends.
The book itself was quite entertaining as it switched back and forth between Cairo and Mont St Michel, the character of Marion was I think well thought out as she came across as less of a heroine and more of a real 40year old woman whose having time to reflect on her single state, lack of real friends and career choices which have brought her into hiding at the behest of the French Secret Service.
Unfortunatly the characters of Geoffrey Matheson & his ex-lover in the Cairo story are not well rounded at all and the conversations they have are more suited to a comic strip format in "Jackie Magazine" or "The Sun" Newspaper.
I don't think the books all bad to be honest as it was a very quick, light read and sometimes that's all you want in a book; as long as you don't work out who done it too early in the book (as I did) and you can ignore the Agatha Christie ending where Who did it is explained in great detail to tie up all the loose ends.
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3.9 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Cheap thriller without the thrills
I'm all for a rattling page-turner and don't mind sacrificing some plausibility for a galloping plot but come on - how did this get published, let alone a place on a recent 'Top... Read more
Published 23 months ago by M. R. Cox
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mrs Dale's Cairo Diary, I fear.
I got this book because it was in a very recent list of the top ten thrillers. Oh dear, who made this list? Read more
Published on 14 April 2010 by Michael Watson
3.0 out of 5 stars
the cairo diary
The Cairo Diary is a book within a book, a story within a story and personally I found that only one of the storys is really finished off properly, only one really carries its self... Read more
Published on 12 Aug 2009 by Mr. Brent Stanton
4.0 out of 5 stars
Faintly unsatisfying
This story flits between a murder mystery in early Twentieth Century Cairo and a witness protection scheme in France that leads the woman protected to stumble across the titular... Read more
Published on 10 Mar 2009 by Captain Pugwash
5.0 out of 5 stars
fantastic!
I found this book to be compelling and atmospheric and could not put it down!. You could almost feel The 21st century storyline building up along with the swell of the impending... Read more
Published on 1 Jan 2009 by Cardea
2.0 out of 5 stars
A book to read on a train
A refugee from Parisian political scandal, Marion hides out at the monastery of Mont-Saint Michel. While working in the library, she discovers a diary recording the investigations... Read more
Published on 29 Aug 2008 by b
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK but not great
The story about Cairo in the 1920s is good, the contemporary setting less so. And don't read the introduction. Read more
Published on 17 Jun 2008 by lmhh
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