The Last Cut (A Mamur Zapt mystery) [Paperback]

Over the last couple of years I've slowly been making my way through Michael Pearce's mysteries that take place in Egypt during the early years of the 20th century when the country was being pried from the dying Ottoman Empire into the avaricious clutches of the British. This is the first of these that I've reviewed, and while a typically fun and informative read, it is not up to his best, generally the early novels in this Mamur Zapt series.

The British author was born in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and the books in this series have a wealth of details about the geography, people and politics of the time and place. I particularly appreciate his description of the nuanced efforts by the various parties to influence the future of Egypt, from left over Ottoman officials to young Nationalists, to the various British businesses and government/military offices that have descended upon the country to "assist" it in its development. Our detective is Gareth Cadwallader Owens, a Welsh army captain assigned as head of the Egyptian secret service, with the traditional title Mamur Zapt. In each book Owens is faced with a crime and with his Egyptian colleague Mahmoud from the prosecutor's office, they struggle to solve crimes amidst a land mind of political and cultural sensitivities that are always eager to see the various crimes as political fodder for one or another cause.

In the current book the British engineering corps are upgrading the extensive hydraulic works necessary to irrigate the Nile Valley and to lessen flooding. This will allow the elimination of a seasonal 'cut' to the dam system, a change lamented in some quarters while seen as a necessary improvement in others. The body of a woman is found near the cut, reviving the legend of the virgins sacrificed to the gods as part of the cut ceremony. As Owen rushes to establish the cause of death and overcome the sacrifice rumors, other crimes occur that complicate his investigation.

All colonial novels describing the interaction between the colonial masters and the local subjugated populace risk stereotyping both parties. In general Pearce's novels avoid most excesses in this regard and sympathetically portray the struggles of a poor and largely uneducated people trying to balance tradition with the demands of a modernizing world overrun with bullying British. The balance is less successful in this book. When a British employee accidentally floods the Khedive's palace, his staff demands the dead penalty for the culprit. The British agree instead to condemn the man to "slow glass house" which sounds sufficiently gruesome to satisfy the Khedive's representative. The punishment entail assisting the General's wife in the greenhouse. This scene just drips with condescension that is both out-of-place and utterly unnecessary. Similar missteps appear throughout.

But there are rich descriptions of people and places that show the author's love of both the country and its people. He describes a row of old Mameluke mansions with entrances on the Sharia Ed-Sureni "while from the front they looked solid and austere, from the back they were a riot of sixteenth century fantasy. Beautiful staircases dropped down to the canal, where, presumably, there would once have been boats, while above them rose meshrebiya oriels and pergola'ed terraces, feather with palms and green with creepers."

Another great book in the Mamur Zapt series. Only sorry it is not on audiobook.