Mamur Zapt & the Men Behind [Hardcover]

Michael Pearce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1993

A sudden bullet pierces the pungent dust that permeates Cairo. The victim is a bookkeeper called Fairclough; he has been shot at from behind while riding home on his donkey, though not badly hurt. Hardly cause for alarm, thinks Cadwallader Owen, better known as the Mamur Zapt, or head of Cairo's Secret Police. After all, Fairclough is with Customs. And in 1909 British-ruled Cairo, Customs is the lowest of all departments. But Owen's nonchalance is soon shattered as unexpected, bloody violence shakes Cairo's crowded bazaars and bustling thoroughfares. Then, scores of frightened British and Egyptian civil servants flood the police with complaints of pursuit by unknown men. Finally, on a dank back street, Owen himself is followed and nearly attacked by two shadowy characters in European dress. Is this a reign of terror to undermine British rule? Or is it a personal vendetta? The Mamur Zapt is determined to uncover the truth. It is a dangerous mission that will take him through Cairo's darkest alleys, into its loudest, bawdiest district, and out to a fearfully remote desert village. Dodging wild bombs and stray bullets, the Mamur Zapt desperately strives to preserve the law...and his own life. But to do so he must find answers to mystifying questions. Who are these would-be assailants who stalk their victims so cunningly? Who are the deadly "men behind"?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As head of the British secret police in Cairo in 1908, Captain Cadwallader Owen is called the Mamur Zapt. In his fourth appearance (after The Mamur Zapt and the Donkey-Vous ), Owen receives complaints from a spate of English visitors and Egyptians that they are being followed; then a Customs Department official is shot at. Owen is reluctant to mount a full-scale investigation, however, because of current political unrest: the previous government has recently fallen and the Khedive, Egypt's hereditary ruler, has yet to name a new cabinet. After entertaining a man named Roper who has come to look at old emerald mines as a possible investment, Owen is faced with the death of two students killed when a bomb explodes in a cafe. While still uncertain whether the bombing and the shootings are political or personal, Owen learns of another bombing outside Hamada near the mines Roper is inspecting. Only by traveling to the edge of the desert can Owen unravel the forces and motivations behind the killings. Pearce deftly captures the intertwined political, cultural and religious tensions of his colorful locale and turbulent period.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Against the background of the hereditary Khedive's dithering over the choice of a new Prime Minister, a wave of (mostly ineffectual) attacks on civil servants--just maybe acts of low-level terrorism- -leads David Cadwallader Owen, the Mamur Zapt of colonial Cairo, to investigate Ali Osman Pasha, a beating victim who turns out to be a candidate for the PM post. Then the attacks turn serious with a bombing in a downtown caf‚ that has links both to a years-long series of bombs carried by university students and to up-to-the-minute slave rings and gunrunners working near, yes, Ali Osman's estate in Lower Egypt. Along the way to his usual drolly underplayed ending, Owen will develop a surprising friendship with a thieving gypsy girl and send his old ministerial friend Mahmoud on a spectacularly successful undercover mission as a law student. Pearce's last few plots (The Mamur Zapt and the Donkey-Vous, etc.) have wound his sly, gentle satire more tightly than ever. The most satisfying entry yet in this attractive series. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press; First Edition edition (July 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892964871
• ISBN-13: 978-0892964871
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,522,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mamur Zapt Series, May 28, 1998

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[e-mail] (Roseburg, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mamur Zapt & the Men Behind (Hardcover)

Gentle, droll, English humor at its best. These stories combine the murder mystery with the politics and culture of Colonial life and the Middle Eastern mystique in cosmopolitan turn-of-the-century Cairo. These books can't be allowed to disappear off the shelves.