The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog (Crime Club) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006471099 ISBN 13: 9780006471097

Publisher: Collins Crime

Synopsis

A classic murder mystery from the award-winning Michael Pearce, in which The Mamur Zapt races to prevent an explosion of religious violence in the Cairo of the 1900s. Cairo in the 1900s. When the body of a dog is discovered in a Coptic tomb - a Muslim insult that could spark an explosion among the Christian community - the Mamur Zapt, British head of Cairo's secret police, is called in to investigate. Equally volatile is a command from an English Member of Parliament that the Mamur Zapt, Gareth Owen, show the MP's niece the sights of the city. When a dancing dervish is stabbed before the lady's very eyes, Owen begins to uncover a plot to set Cairo's ethnic communities at each other's throats...

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Pearce was raised in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, where his fascination for language began. He later trained as a Russian interpreter but moved away from languages to follow an academic career, first as a lecturer in English and the History of Ideas, and then as an administrator. Michael Pearce now lives in London and is best known as the author of the award-winning Mamur Zapt books.

From Publishers Weekly:

First met in The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet , Captain Gareth Owen is a colonial police officer in British-controlled Cairo. As Mamur Zapt, his job is to keep the uneasy peace between the Coptic and Muslim factions of the city. One night a dead dog is left at a Coptic gravesite. Smarting over the insult, the Copts retaliate and a Zikr , a Muslim dancer, is murdered during a dervish-style ceremony. These incidents land smack on Owen's plate, and lead to increasing violence in the city. That Jane Posthelthwaite, the attractive niece of an influential British politician, was witness to the murder--and, worse yet, in Owen's less-than-protective company--makes for lots of pressure on Owen to find the guilty parties and calm the city down. In a slyly witty and altogether logical manner, Pearce's self-effacing sleuth discovers (through bribes, conversations, stakeouts and deduction) that the strife is due to high-level government sneakiness and abuse of power. Each scene is sharply rendered with local color, and Pearce explains often complex social and political behavior through believable dialogue.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Collins Crime
• ISBN 10: 0006471099
• ISBN 13: 9780006471097
• Binding: Paperback