The Mamur Zapt And The Girl In The Nile (1994) - Plot & Excerpts
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 off the boat belonging to an heir to the throne of Egypt.While we have all the usual tact, frustration at corruption, poor treatment of women, respect for tradition and so on, I didn't enjoy this book so much as some of the others. There is less humour in it and there is no happy resolution; perhaps the author means to say that there cannot be one while women are treated as possessions. We do find the usual political tensions with the wealthy ruler opposed by some of his own and the British / French interests in Egypt a cause for further anger. Certainly if you want to get an idea of early 20th century Cairo, this series is a great place to go, and the tensions leading up to the war and the end of colonial rule are subtly evident.
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