"Tourists are quite safe provided they don't do anything stupidly reckless," so Captain Owen, the Mamur Zapt, Head of Cairo's Political CID under British Rule, assures the press. But what of Monsieur Moulin, kidnapped from taking tea on the terrace at Shepheard's Hotel? How has Mr. Colthorpe Hartley also disappeared? No one has actually seen either victim vanish.... Are these ordinary crimes? Are they intended as deliberately symbolic blows at the British? Or are they just a means of discouraging tourism? Owen had better unravel it quickly, or else.... And where better to start from than the donkey-vous beneath the terrace, home of Cairo's humble but enterprising youths who hire out their donkeys for photographs and rides...

The world is changing around 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, other difficult questions arise. 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?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....

Malta, 1913, and hot air balloons hover over the Grand Harbour. But one of them falls from the sky, the balloonist dying later from his injuries. He is not the only one to die unexpectedly at the Naval Hospital, however, as a letter to The Times points out. Special Investigator Seymour of the Foreign Office is sent out from London to uncover the truth. Malta is still a British protectorate; indeed, with its red post boxes, English beer and English language, it seems like an exotic 'Little Britain'. But as the rumblings of war reach the small island, many of the old Maltese families are becoming divided in their loyalties, as some start to question Malta's subordinate status and wonder whether the time has come to strike out an independent path for themselves. The letter to The Times has touched a raw nerve, as Seymour soon finds out: is it simply a critique of bad nursing practises? Or is there a different, more sinister explanation to these sudden deaths?

Witty and irreverent, this is the first in an irresistible crime series set in Tsarist Russia in the 1890s from the award-winning Michael Pearce. Tsarist Russia in the 1890s. Dmitri Kameron, a young lawyer, must deal with the disappearance of a well-connected young woman. She has been shipped off to Siberia, in one of the prison wagons outside the Court House. But is this a bureaucratic bungle or something more calculated? On a journey to the furthest outposts of Russia, Dimitri's search becomes horribly complicated. To unearth the truth in a treacherous world of Russian officialdom he is forced to make some strange allies, not least among them the redoubtable Milk-Drinkers...

A classic murder mystery from the award-winning Michael Pearce, in which The Mamur Zapt races to prevent an explosion of religious violence in the Cairo of the 1900s. Cairo in the 1900s. When the body of a dog is discovered in a Coptic tomb – a Muslim insult that could spark an explosion among the Christian community – the Mamur Zapt, British head of Cairo's secret police, is called in to investigate. Equally volatile is a command from an English Member of Parliament that the Mamur Zapt, Gareth Owen, show the MP's niece the sights of the city. When a dancing dervish is stabbed before the lady's very eyes, Owen begins to uncover a plot to set Cairo's ethnic communities at each other's throats...

Cairo, 1910. Captain Owen, The Mamur Zapt, is the head of Egypt's Political CID in the heyday of British Rule. He is ultimately responsible for law and order in the Khedive's Cairo. When the rules, whether obvious or hidden, are flouted, he steps into action—although it sometimes looks like he's merely stepped sideways, out of the way.Now it is the end of the boom, leaving banks beleaguered and borrowers in trouble whether the poorest land-working fellahin or the richest land-owning Pashas. Then a civil servant suspiciously dies at his desk. The whiff of corruption is in the air. Even Owen, who is supposed to be investigating the affair, appears to be living beyond his means. As he turns to such unlikely allies as the Grand Mufti, the local barber, and the Widow Shawquat, he penetrates to the heart of such sinister organizations as the Khedive's Agricultural Society. The rich are tricky, and money speaks louder than words, challenging Owen to use all his skills to stop...

Praise for the Dead Man series: "Picking up a new book by Michael Pearce reminds you why people enjoy reading mysteries."—Denver Post "The steady pace, atmospheric design, and detailed description re-create a complicated city. A recommended historical series."—Library Journal "Sheer fun."—The Times (London) "An unfailingly amusing historical series."—Booklist "Pearce again demonstrates his skill at making the past come alive and at seamlessly weaving actual political intrigues into his plot."—Publishers Weekly Barcelona, 1912—a city still recovering from the dramatic incidents of the so-called "Tragic Week" when Catalonian conscripts bound for the unpopular war in Spanish Morocco had rebelled at the city's dockside against the royalist forces. In the fighting, many were killed, and afterward, even more imprisoned, including an Englishman, who was later found dead in his cell. The...