"The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog" by Michael Pearce, #2 Mamur Zapt historical mystery series (our library only had this one in the series)I found this to be an interesting historical mystery set in a time that I'm unfamiliar with (early 1900's Egypt). I enjoyed the author's style of writi...
The Mamur Zapt, head of Cairo's CID in the heyday of (the indirect) British rule, focuses on political, not police, matters. With the bustling new century, the loosening of imperial ties, and the rise of nationalism, his is a busy office. The attempted assassination of a veteran politician raises...
Someone is running a campaign to discredit Cairo's senior police officials. Is Garvin, the Commandant, playing power games, or is he trying to get to the bottom of the allegations of corruption? What about Garvin's senior deputy, McPhee, a man who might finally be going round the bend? And what o...
This is another charming tale set in Egypt prior to WW1. The girl of the title has been seen dead on a sandbank in the Nile but when the police arrive the body has vanished. The hunt for the body begins. The Mamur Zapt, head of Secret Police, is involved because the girl is thought to have fallen...
In the Cairo of 1908, the city lives--and dies--by its cafi culture. But for all restaurant businesses, then and now, the protection rackets pose a problem. And the city's cafis are experiencing a sudden upsurge in threats from various gangs. But who are they? More importantly, who's behind them?...
Why was the body put on the line? Chance? Or did someone want to halt the progress of the new electric railway out fom Cairo to the City of Pleasure being built in the suburbs? Was it another of Egypt's traditional revenge killings? Or had the murdered man somehow got caught up in the manoeuvring...
After Miss Skinner, the niece of a U.S. presidential candidate struggling to keep Egyptian antiquities in Egypt, nearly lands in front of a Cairo tram, the Mamur Zapt, Captain Gareth Owen feels it prudent to keep an eye on her. Soon suspecting that many of the antiquities aren't really priceless,...
Why is Seymour of Scotland Yard summoned to somewhere so exotic as North Africa? Isn't the death of a Frenchman there something for the local police? Well, yes and no. The local police are answerable to the International Committee, of which the chairman is the British Consul. So naturally the ens...
While riding home to lunch on his donkey, Fairclough of Customs is rudely unseated by shots fired from behind. The incident is but the first of a series of attacks seemingly aimed at public officials. Even Captain Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt, British head of Cairo's Secret Police, barely escapes....
For millennia, Egypt has depended upon the waters of the Nile. Its annual floods fertilize the land. By the time the British control Egypt, the Cairo Barrage is the key to control, its name taken from the French term meaning a dam or irrigation channel, designed to increase a river's depth or to ...
asked Owen. “Yes, effendi,” said Ali’s uncle humbly. “If you are playing tricks with me—” “I am not, effendi. I swear it!” Ali’s uncle protested vigorously. “You brought them here? To this very spot?” “Yes, effendi.” Owen climbed out of the arabeah and looked around him. In the distance he could ...
Mrs Wynne-Gurr lined them up and then posted them around the places she had assigned them. Chantale went dutifully to Ward J; although what she was supposed to do there, and why Seymour had asked for her to go there, she did not know. She had seen him in the distance but he had not spoken to her....
She heard a door inside the house open and close and then the young man, Bruno, came out on to the patio. ‘Your pardon, Signora!’ he said, jumping back with a start when he saw Chantale. ‘It is nothing,’ said Chantale, smiling. ‘Can I help you?’ ‘I ...
Only it wasn’t a town now but just some mounds and ruins, in which a donkey was grazing, pulling at the weeds growing in the broken walls. Its owner was hoeing a patch between the mounds and he told them that the nearest village, the one from which the small boys had come to vex Mohammed, was fur...
Fehmi was shocked. ‘Surely not! I thought we had agreed that this was to be a case of suicide.’ ‘We didn’t agree it was “to be” anything. We thought it was a case of suicide.’ ‘Well, yes, of course. That’s what I meant.’ The Parquet lawyer looked at Owen with injured brown eyes. ‘How could it be ...
‘So it’s all safely stowed, is it?’ ‘It is,’ said Nassir, ‘and I can breathe again!’ ‘And have a cup of coffee?’ ‘I don’t know that I should,’ wavered Nassir. ‘He might come in early to have a look around.’ ‘He was in last night, wasn’t he?’ ‘He was. I don’t mind that. He wanted to make sure ever...
said Narouz, “I have to confess.” They were sitting again on the terrace of the Continental. Owen had suggested he visit the Prince at home but Narouz had rejected that in favor of the hotel. He preferred to make his confessions in the open air. “Yes,” he said, rolling the ice in his glass and lo...
‘Seymour from Scotland Yard.’ ‘Jesus!’ Again from inside. The seaman checking Seymour’s papers suddenly looked rattled. ‘Excuse me, sir.’ He dashed into the guardroom. Through the open window Seymour could hear concerned disc...
Then he took it to an apothecary. ‘Could you tell me, please, what this might be prescribed for?’ The apothecary took one look at it and handed it back. ‘Constipation,’ he said. ‘And it’s powerful, is it?’ The apothecary took...