The Mamur Zapt and the Men Behind: A Suspense Tale of Old Cairo [Mass Market Paperback]

Michael Pearce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1994

Unexpected violence throttles Cairo's bustling bazaars. When Mamur Zapt, the head of Cairo's Secret Police, is stalked and attacked by two shadowy men, he takes action. "The most satisfying entry yet in this attractive (and critically acclaimed) series".--Kirkus Reviews.

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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: The Mysterious Press (December 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446401838
• ISBN-13: 978-0446401838
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,893,770 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

By 

[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.