The Girl in the Nile (Mamur Zapt Mysteries)

The fifth case (after The Mamur Zapt and the Men Behind) for Captain Garth Owen, head of the British police force in Cairo in the first decade of the 20th century, is less exciting than its volatile setting suggests. Investigating the death of a woman who falls from the pleasure boat of Prince Narouz, Owen, as Mamur Zapt, follows a trail through a thicket of foreign customs, language and touchy royalty. The woman's body is sighted in the water, then it disappears. Lazy officials are suspected of moving it out of their jurisdiction, but it's the royalty who raise the thorniest dilemmas. Owen is given mixed signals from his superiors, who want the case solved and the royals soothed, all at the same time. Less ambiguous in her wishes is Zeinab, Owen's Egyptian lover, who feels considerable sympathy with the free-spirited, unorthodox dead woman and wants her body found. Pearce delights in political and social detail, but he squanders the romantic suspense inherent in both his setting and the conflicts among his cast of characters. The repetitious uncertainties of stuffy British colonials are no substitute for real mystery and adventure. 1909 Egypt. It's easy to go adrift in the complex political currents swirling through a country that has long been'advised'by the British after the mess it made of its finances, but now swelling with nationalism. And you can't discount the self-interest of the Khedive, the Royal Family, and of 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 one definitely lost overboard, had been 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.... In Colonial Egypt, Captain Garth Owen Of The British Police Investigates The Drowning Of A Woman From The Yacht Of A Local Prince, His Work Hampered By The Disappearance Of Her Body, As Well As Political Considerations. Michael Pearce. Sequel To: The Men Behind. Sequel: The Spoils Of Egypt.