The Last Cut

Description

The latest novel in Michael Pearce's award-winning series, set in the Egypt of the 1900s. 'Irresistible fun' Time Out. Everything in Egypt depends on the water of the Nile. So when an attempt is made to blow up a key regulator in the Cairo Barrage, Gareth Owen -- the Mamur Zapt, Chief of Cairo's Secret Police -- is hurriedly called in. What exactly is a regulator, though? Owen doesn't know. But then, he doesn't know many things: who is the Lizard Man, for instance, and why does he appear to have a grudge against Egypt's irrigation system? Quite unconnected (or is it?) is the ceremonial cutting of a dam which allows water to flow through the city. It is a ceremony which always requires policing, but on this occasion more than ever, for it is going to be the Last Cut. Which makes the discovery of a young woman's body at the site of the dam extremely embarrassing. Is this the traditional ritual sacrifice? Definitely not, says Owen -- but this could be another of the things he doesn't know...

Michael Pearce grew up in the (then) Anglo-Egyptian Sudan among the various tensions he draws on for his award-winning Mamur Zapt series. He returned there to teach, and retains a human rights interest in the area. In between whiles his career has followed the standard academic rake's progress from teaching to writing to editing to administration. He finds international politics a pallid imitation of academic ones. He lives in London. He is now a full-time writer. He was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's prestigious Last Laugh Award for funniest crime novel of the year for the 'Mamur Zapt and the Spoils of Egypt'. Michael Pearce is also the author of the crime novels featuring Dmitri Kameron, set in Tsarist Russia of the 1890s.

'Pearce... takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour' Sunday Times 'Marvellously convoluted... Dryly and deeply funny' Philip Oakes, Literary Review