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 manoeuvrings of the sinister power groups jostling for position around the new railway? In this, the tenth novel in Michael Pearce's award-winning series, Old Egypt is pitted against New and in the middle is the Mamur Zapt. To answer these questions he has to look both in the luxurious quarters of the dazzling New Heliopolis and in the more humble houses of the dead man's village, and in neither place are things as straightforward as they seem. What is the significance of the tree of the Virgin? Does it matter that the gathering place for the Mecca caravan is only a mile or two away? And what of the ostrich that passed in the night?
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Review
Acclaim for Michael Pearce and the Mamur Zapt novels: 'Pearce takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour' John Coleman, Sunday Times 'Marvellously convoluted... Dryly and deeply funny' Philip Oakes, Literary Review
About the Author
Michael Pearce grew up in the (then) Anglo-Egyptian Sudan among the political and other tensions he draws on for his books. He returned there later to teach and retains a human rights interest in the area. His career has followed the standard academic rakes progress from teaching to writing to administration. He finds international politics a pallid imitation of academic ones.