Customer Reviews

Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog, The

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Captain Gareth Cadwallader Owen is the Mamur Zapth; head of Cairo's political CID. When a dead dog is placed at the Coptic tomb and a Moslem Zikr dancer is murdered, it is up to Own to find out who is behind the escalating unrest. At the same time, he much find the money to support his investigation, resolve the marital problems of his office bearer, and entertain the niece of a visiting British MP while keeping happy his beautiful Egyptian girlfriend.

Pearce does a wonderful job of conveying the delicacy needed to maintain peace between religious and political factions. This look at the past is very relevant to the present. But he balances that nicely with the humor of Owan's involvement in a marital situation. Pearce creates a wonderful sense of place and period. This is a fairly quick read, but a fascinating one. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

This is an enjoyable mystery with great period detail set in a time that not many of us know about. I'm not sure what I enjoy more the story line or the pictures painted of the place and time.

Requirements to love the books in this series: you got to love historical mysteries and be amused by murky politics. The books are short, so you must also enjoy reading slowly. It is not like action flicks you can read in half an hour: you got to pay attention. Here is the context of this mystery series. No country has politics as hard to understand as Egypt between 1900 and 1914. The Khedive was an Egyptian Vice-Roy, entirely dependent of the British occupant while the country was still officially under nominal Turkish control. The British were there of course to control Suez. The French retained a large influence, since Napoleon time, principally in legal matters. Every politician was trying to take advantage of the conflicts between Copts (Egyptian Christians) and Muslims. But what dominates the times is corruption at every level of society. The author, Michael Pearce is extremely at ease with all this complexity and plays it by discrete touches: it is a delight to read. The hero is the chief of police for political matters and he is Welsh, honest, and very smart. What is astonishing is that you read this as the memoirs of an insider of the time. We go from a dead dog to the nomination of a Copt minister following very thin political threads. If you are willing, this is a real delight.