The Fig Tree Murder (Mamur Zapt, Book 10)

Description

From the award-winning Michael Pearce, comes a delightful murder mystery set in Egypt in 1908. A body is found on the tracks of a new electric railway and the Mamur Zapt is called in to investigate. Cairo, 1908. It's called the Tree of the Virgin, a site of religious interest, perilously close to the construction site of the new electric railway. Sinister power groups are jostling for position, but who dumped the body of the humble villager on the track? When the Mamur Zapt begins to pick his way through the local and national power structures, he has to ask, what is the significance of the Fig Tree? Does it matter that the caravans for Mecca gather only a mile or so away? And what of the ostrich that passed in the night?

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.

Praise for Michael Pearce: 'Sheer fun' The Times 'Effortlessly funny and engaging' Literary Review Michael Pearce's light touch and witty dialogue make this series a continuing delight' Sunday Telegraph 'Urbane, intelligent and never patronising, Pearce writes about Egypt with the observant eye of the lover who sees yet forgives all faults' - Val McDermid