Michael Pearce

The Girl in the Nile (Mamur Zapt Mysteries) Michael Pearce First edition

1909 Egypt. It's easy to go adrift in the complex political currents swirling through a country long "advised" by the British after the mess it made of its finances, but swelling with nationalism. Still, you can't discount the self-interest of the Khedive, the Royal Family, and the country's pashas. Nevertheless, Captain Gareth Owen, Head of the Cairo Secret Police, has to ask, "Where's the body?" The girl, perhaps a woman of ill repute but definitely lost overboard, was glimpsed lying on a sandbank in the Nile. Then she vanished. Why had Prince Narouz hired the dahabeeyah? Surely not just to cruise to Luxor--the man has no interest in antiquities. And why was Miss Sekhmet on the boat anyway? Was it for the Prince's pleasure, or to embarrass him? Under heavy pressure from politicos and his own mistress, the strong-minded Zeinab, Owen steers a difficult course after a murderer....