While riding home to lunch on his donkey, Fairclough of Customs is rudely unseated by shots fired from behind. The incident is but the first of a series of attacks seemingly aimed at public officials. Even Captain Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt, British head of Cairo's Secret Police, barely escapes. Is a sinister campaign to undermine foreign rule under way? And who are "the men behind"? True, the Nationalist movement is rising after thirty years of the British Protectorate, and the new Liberal Government in London is more sympathetic than the heavy-handed Conservatives to local rule. But can Owen discount more mundane agendas?Under orders to act quickly, Owen delves into both maneuverings at the Khedive's court and the goals of a commercial delegation. His investigations not only carry him in to the city's student quarter but out into the countryside and onto a rural estate. Along the way he juggles a Pasha whose political star is fading, a bomb-wielding Berber, and the...

Why is Seymour of Scotland Yard summoned to North Africa? Isn't the death of a Frenchman there a matter for the local police? But in the run-up to the First World War, everything is connected, and a single murder in politically fraught Morocco could destabilize Europe.From the Trade Paperback edition.

For millennia, Egypt has depended upon the waters of the Nile. Its annual floods fertilize the land. By the time Britain extends its dominion over Egypt, the Cairo Barrage is the key to control, its name taken from the French term meaning a dam or irrigation channel designed to increase a river's depth or to divert its flow.An attempt to blow up the Manufiyah regulator in the Barrage is not a petty matter. Gareth Owen, The Mamur Zapt, Chief of Cairo's Secret Police, is hurriedly summoned. He hasn't a clue what a regulator is. Nor can he identify the mysterious Lizard Man who seems to have a grudge against the whole Egyptian irrigation system. But he does know that the ceremonial cutting of the temporary dam thrown up each year across the mouth of the Khalig Canal restarts the whole irrigation cycle, allowing water to pour through the canal and signal the opening of dams all across the land. The cut will require policing. Especially as it is going to be the last cut before...

The kidnapping of an innocent schoolgirl throws a glaring light on the tensions and injustices of pre-War Egyptian society in this absorbing historical mystery. Cairo, Egypt, 1913. When schoolgirl Marie Kewfik is kidnapped, snatched away as she strolled through the bustling bazaars of the Souk, the Khedive insists that the Mamur Zapt, Head of the Secret Police, takes charge of the negotiations for her safe return. The Kewfiks are one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Egypt but, as the Mamur Zapt discovers, not everyone thinks it's worth the trouble to secure the release of a mere girl. He also learns that there is more to Marie's kidnapping than meets the eye – and the subsequent fallout will shine a glaring light on the dangerous tensions running through Egyptian society.

Lionel Scampion, British consul in Naples, has been stabbed to death while bicycling through the piazza of the Porta Carmine. According to his sister, he had no enemies. The Neapolitan police suggest he was murdered by a bicycle-racing rival. In Naples, every mystery is attributed to the Camorra, a powerful criminal society; could its members be involved? Scampion enthusiastically backed the Italian invasion of Libya and befriended army officers of the newly formed Italian Bicycle Brigade. Now the Foreign Office in London has heard that international politics emanating from Rome might have been involved. Seymour of the Special Branch is sent to find out the motive for the murder and, incidentally, to identify the culprit.From the Hardcover edition.

"A lovingly detailed portrait of Egypt during the Great War. The result is a bit like a police procedural reimagined by Douglas Adams" Kirkus Reviews on The Bride Box Atbara, Sudan, 1913. A dead man is fished out of the River Nile. An accident – or something more sinister? A visiting Pasha from the Royal Household believes it was murder – and that he himself was the intended target. He insists that the Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedive's Secret Police, escorts him on his return train journey to Cairo, for protection. It's to be an eventful voyage. Matters take an unexpected turn when the train is stranded in the desert following a sandstorm. With the help of English schoolboy Jamie Nicholson, the Mamur Zapt pursues his investigations, convinced that at least one of his fellow passengers has a secret to hide. And what was the Pasha really doing in that remote corner of the Sudan? Could the Mamur Zapt's deepest fears be true? Could he really be about...

The Great War has ended, and the army is keen to be demobbed. But Willoughby, the new British High Commissioner in Egypt, has managed to affront the Khedive by refusing to receive rival delegations fueled by rising nationalism. Then, when some Armenians, Copts, and English civil servants are attacked, a state of emergency is declared.Gareth Cadwallader Owen is the Mamur Zapt, the Head of the Khedive's Secret Police. Unlike his British colleagues, Owen works for the Khedive. His is an uncomfortable perch as agitation for political and social restructuring grows. Furthermore, Owen is married to a pasha's daughter, Zeinab, herself straddling a cultural divide.The Khedive has declared a procession: he'll drive around Cairo with his Ministers. Owen, who has spent his career defusing political time bombs, learns the streets have been made dangerous by threats of real bombs. The first order of business is to ward them off. The second is to ensure the safety of an impending major...

In the Cairo of 1908, the city lives—and dies—by its café culture. But for all restaurant businesses, then and now, the protection rackets pose a problem. And the city's cafés are experiencing a sudden upsurge in threats from various gangs. But who are they? More importantly, who's behind them? Is the money being channeled to some big crook, or is its use political, for, say, the purchase of guns? With some sixty nationalities, one hundred and twelve ethnic groups, and over two hundred religious sects, not to mention the burgeoning Nationalists, stewing, policing the capital is no easy matter.When Mustapha, one café proprietor, is attacked by men with clubs, his legs broken for non-compliance, everyone is worried. Could the attacks be escalating towards the international community? The Russian Chargé makes a complaint—the Mingrelians, a very small Christian group from the Caucasus, may be targeting a Russian Grand Duke. This royal figure is coming to...

A murder in Istanbul is entangled with international politics and deadly secrets when an embassy official is shot trying to swim the Dardanelles Straits. Special Branch officer Seymour's investigation ranges through Istanbul's graveyards, box shops, and crowded coffee houses, leading to the heart of Topkapi Palace.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Cairo, 1912. The Pasha receives an unexpected gift: a traditional Bride Box. When opened, however, the box contains an unwelcome jolt from the past – one which connects with practices long thought dead. At the same time, a little girl is discovered riding under a train from Luxor – and the Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedive’s Secret Police, is called in to investigate.An Englishman squeezed between the demands of a world about to disappear and the emerging needs of a world about to come, the Mamur Zapt, finds himself confronting a political storm as the end of British rule approaches and his investigations uncover a tangled web of family loyalties and betrayals, with its roots in a slave trade long supposed to have been stamped out in Egypt.