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Praise for the Dead Man series: “Sheer fun.”—The Times (London) “An unfailingly amusing historical series.”—Booklist “The steady pace, atmospheric design, and detailed description re-create a complicated city. A recommended historical series.”—Library Journal “Picking up a new book by Michael Pearce reminds you why people enjoy reading mysteries.”—The Denver Post “Pearce again demonstrates his skill at making the past come alive and at seamlessly weaving actual political intrigues into his plot.”—Publishers Weekly “The whodunit is clever and well written, as is the case in all of Michael Pearce’s tales . . . the sense of time and place is outstanding.”—Mystery Gazette 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. Michael Pearce was raised in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, trained as a Russian interpreter, and had an academic career in England. He now lives in London. ...
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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. ...
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In 1913, a poisoned cat, an exiled Sultan, and a new vision of an ascendant Greece threaten the Balkans with utter chaos and war. Something has to be done, and fast. Who was behind the feline poisoning? British Special Branch officer Seymour is on the case. ...
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The churning politics of Trieste in 1906 provide the perfect backdrop for murder in the first in a series set in British embassies and consulates in the early 1900s featuring Special Branch officer Seymour. When the British consul goes missing, who's responsible: the secret police, revolutionaries, or a mysterious lover? ...
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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. ...
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The world is changing aroung the Mamur Zapt, British Chief of Cairo's Secret Police. It's 1912 and there's a war on that no one's heard of. When an Italian man is murdered in the city's back streets, there is concern that this could be some kind of ethnic cleansing. "One of us" Morelli may have been, but was he "one of us" enough? And were the guns in his warehouse anything to do with it? Gareth Owen -- the Mamur Zapt -- has to find out fast. And then, as external pressures crowd in, there are other difficult questions. What is Trudi von Ramsberg really doing in Cairo? Not to mention that other noted traveller, Gertrude Bell, or the irritating little archaeologist, T. E. Lawrence? And why has the post of Khedive's Librarian suddenly become so important? Owen is just the man to solve these problems. He is less successful, though, in his relationship with Zeinab, especially now that she's approaching thirty. As Cromer's Egypt gives way to Kitchener's Egypt, Morelli is not the only one who has problems over where his allegiance lies. Maybe the solution is for Owen to go to Zanzibar... ...
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"This series continues to be distinguished by an international flavor and its atmospheric depiction of the convoluted political and social arena that characterized turn-of-the-century Europe and the Middle East."-Booklist In 1912, a prominent Englishman is found dead in prison in Barcelona. Since he did business in Gibraltar, the English want an investigation by someone independent of the Spanish authorities. Scotland Yard dispatches Seymour of the Special Branch. Michael Pearce lives in southwest London and is best known as the author of the award-winning Mamur Zapt books. ...
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For millennia, Egypt has depended upon the waters of the Nile. Its annual floods fertilize the land. By the time the British control 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 flow. An attempt to blow up the Manufiyah regulator in the Barrage is not a petty matter. Gareth Owen, the 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 damn 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 canal is filled in. While this modernization will wipe out a health hazard, the Cairenes love the party that goes with the Cut. They are less than happy. Things grow worse when a young woman's body is discovered at the site. Owen has to say it's extremely embarrassing. Is this the traditional ritual sacrifice? Or a sign of sabotage? A diversion? Or just plain murder?
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The Great War has ended, and the army is keen to be demobbed. Willoughby, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, hasnat been long in his job. The Khedive is affronted when Britain refuses to receive rival delegations fueled by rising nationalism. A state of emergency has been declared. Some Armenians and Copts have been attacked. So have some English Civil Servants. Gareth Cadwallader Owen is the Mamur Zapt, the Head of the Khediveas Secret Police. Unlike his British colleagues, Owen works for the Khedive. Itas not a comfortable perch as agitation for political and social restructuring grows. Furthermore, Owen is married to a pashaas daughter, Zeinab, herself straddling a cultural divide. The Khedive has declared a procession. Heas going to drive around Cairo with his Ministers. Owen, who has spent his career defusing political time bombs, learns from his agents, some Greek and Egyptian, that 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 insure the safety of an impending major European delegation to the capital.What does it all have to do with Owenas shiny new motor car? ...
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In a time when anyone could be the enemy, the Mamur Zapt has to count friend and foe -- a killer task.... Egypt, 1914. The outbreak of war in Europe casts ripples that can be felt even in Cairo. Gareth Owen, Mamur Zapt and Head of the Khedive's Secret Police, is given the unhappy task of rounding up enemy aliens. But in a land where the adoption of foreign nationality is a popular means of avoiding trial by an Egyptian court, determining who counts as a German proves contentious. And then there's the face in the cemetery. A cat cemetery, at that. Who disturbed the mummified remains by placing a human corpse amongst then? Is the villagers' talk of a mysterious Cat Woman mere superstitious nonsense, or something rather sinister? Owen would prefer to leave these matters in other hands. He has a more pressing concern in the shape of missing rifles (missing? in war time?) and dubious gun-toting ghaffirs. Villages usually, elect the local idiot as their ghaffir or watchman (who else would want to take on the brigands?), so what are these toughs doing here? Not to mention a heavily armed, thumb-sucking girl. The face in the cemetery, though, refuses to go away, and Owen comes to realize that it poses questions that are not just professional but uncomfortably personal. This is the 14th book in the popular series published by Poisoned Pen Press.
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The Mamur Zapt, Head of Cairo's Secret Police under British Rule, did not concern himself with routine police matters. His are the intrigues, the shadowy and sinister events aimed at creating political instability--such as the discovery of the body of a dog in a Coptic tomb. This supreme Moslem insult could touch off an explosion among the Christian community. Equally volatile is the visit from an English MP intent upon inspecting the Cromer administration's accounts. It is not a welcome time for a command that Captain Owen, the Mamur Zapt, show the MP's niece the sights. Worse, the sights include a dancing dervish stabbed before the lady's very eyes, which was not what her uncle had in mind. Is this all part of a pattern that could lead to blood on the streets and set Cairo's ethnic communities at each other's throats? Michael Pearce, who made his much-praised debut in The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet (Poisoned Pen Press 2001), continues to chart Owen's fortunes with his trademark sly humor and relish for the oddities of Egyptian life. ...
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