Suspense Tales of Old Cairo: The Mamur Zapt Mysteries of Michael Pearce

Mamur Zapt is the official title of the Head of Cairo CID.

In this 1988 opener in the nineteen-book series, Welshman Captain Owen accedes to the role. The crimes he is to investigate are largely political and his first case is no exception.

As Cairo prepares for its greatest religious festival, the celebration of the return of the Holy Carpet from Mecca, the attempted assassination of a veteran politician raises fears of a major terrorist incident in the Egyptian capital.

In Cairo relationships between the Muslim and Coptic Christian communities are always uneasy. So when a dead dog is dumped in a Coptic burial ground, irate Christians blame the followers of Islam for the insult and set out on a path of vengeance.

Using a combination of dogged police work, guile, subtlety and bribes, Captain Owen works diligently to head off a potential religious war and uncover the conspiracy behind the incident.

A wealthy French tourist disappears from the terrace of the famous Shepheard’s Hotel. Soon after an Englishman vanishes, too. Ransom notes come in from a criminal gang.

Called in to investigate, Captain Owen finds himself drawn into the world of some of Cairo’s poorest inhabitants, the boys who look after the city’s donkeys.

Here he uncovers a surprising solution to the disappearances.

Captain Owen travels to Upper Egypt to act as the bodyguard to Miss Skinner, a wealthy and well-connected American lady who is campaigning to preserve Ancient Egyptian archaeological sites from grave robbers and local landowners.

However, it soon turns out Miss Skinner has a secret agenda of her own and a number of violent enemies. One of the Pearce’s most sharply amusing books, Mamur Zapt and the Spoils of Egypt won the CWA Last Laugh Award for funniest crime novel.

It’s 1909 and in the Egyptian capital civil servants report being followed through the streets by mysterious men, then one of them is shot at. Who are these mysterious “Men Behind”?

At first it seems they must be connected to Egyptian groups who are opposed to the British, but then events take an unexpected turn and lead Owen to focus instead on Egypt’s ruler, the Khedive and his corrupt court.

A beautiful young woman drowns in the Nile after falling from the boat of Prince Naroouz, one of the Khedive’s nephews.

With the British fearing a Royal scandal that might lead to unrest, Captain Owen is called in to carry out a discrete inquiry and find out who else was on the boat and why?

Using a network of paid informers he stealthily tracks down the killers.

In a city riddled with financial malfeasance, Captain Owen is called in to investigate the death of a civil servant found dead at his desk. He soon uncovers a murky world of shady banking schemes and divisive land sales that threaten to tip Cairo into angry rebellion.

A plot to discredit Cairo’s senior British officials including Captain Owen (whose beautiful Egyptian girlfriend Zenabia makes him a figure of suspicion in some eyes) reaches a peak, but who is behind it.

The Mamur Zapt can’t help wondering if it is being engineered by Cairo’s British commandant, Garvin, or perhaps is assistant, the unhinged McPhee.

To prevent himself being dragged under Owen must unravel a tangle of past misdeeds involving ancient female rites and the milk of cobras.

Captain Owen deals with a cluster of gangs running an extortion racket that targets Cairo’s café owners. But are he gangsters raising money purely for their own benefit or are they financing some wider terrorist scheme?

As ethnic tensions involving the tiny Russian-speaking community rise in Cairo, the Mamur Zapt must use all his intelligence and finesse to solve the mystery without provoking a riot, especially since King Edward VII has chosen this awkward moment to pay a visit to the Suez Canal.

A body is found on the new railway line connecting Cairo to its outer suburbs. Who has placed it there? Is it a protest against the railway, a simply revenge killing, or is it part of the internecine warfare between groups competing to profit from the new train service?

Captain Owen’s investigation reveals a world in which old Egypt and modern Egypt are fighting a vicious battle for supremacy.

Like 1920s Los Angeles, 1900s Cairo is a city where the struggle over water supplies is intense and often murderous. The building of a new canal to replace ancient Egyptian systems of irrigation is greeted with anger by the locals.

After several attempts at sabotage, the dead body of a young girl is found at one of the construction sites. Captain Owen is called in to find the killer and try to diffuse what has become a bitter conflict between tradition and modernity.

Shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Award for best historical novel 1999, this is one of Pearce’s finest mysteries. In it Captain Owen investigates the death of a high-ranking Russian “effendi” who is shot dead while attending a meeting in the Ancient City of the Crocodiles.

Since it’s soon apparent that powerful forces wanted the Russian dead, the Mamur Zapt must tread a delicate line to catch the killer and avoid getting bumped off himself.

The murder of a member of Cairo’s Italian community is the focus of this mystery set in 1912. Captain Owen’s investigation uncovers deep-rooted tensions between Cairo’s ethnic communities, a major gun smuggling operation, and potential revolt against British rule. 

There’s also the presence of a German woman who may be a spy and a fleeting cameo for Lawrence of Arabia.

The Mamur Zapt finds himself wandering through a Cairo cat cemetery, not because he has any affection for dead felines, but because a newer mummified body has been discovered there—that of a modern German woman.

The locals claim it must have been suicide – but how would a dead person wrap themselves in bandages? With war between Britain and Germany nudging ever closer, it’s a case that will require all Captain Owen’s smarts and subtlety.

With the First World War about to explode into deadly life, Egypt is under threat of invasion by Turkey. Captain Owen has other things to worry about, too.

There’s a dead body in the camel market, which turns out to be that of one of his agents and the city is filled with unrest not only from those who oppose the British, but also from a wave of “New Women” who want to put an end to the country’s patriarchal system.

Set in the years immediately after World War One. Captain Owen has been loaned a new-fangled motorcar and driver and is tasked with escorting the delegation that will be holding talks on Britain’s future in Egypt.

The Mamur Zapt himself is having doubts about colonial rule, but he must still do his duty, especially when a bomb goes off. 

The discovery of a young girl hiding under a train in Luxor, and a dead woman in the bride box that would usually store a newly married woman’s clothing, puts Captain Owen on the trail of Sudanese people traffickers.

Along the way, he encounters the desperately poor parents who are forced to sell their children into slavery and the poverty that underpins the glamorous life of the wealthy in Cairo. 

Captain Owen is giving the task of escorting a paranoid Pasha back to Cairo from a conference in the Sudan. An apparently straightforward task takes on a dangerous edge when the train is stopped by a sandstorm.

As the Pasha grows increasingly restless about the secret documents in his possession and water begins to run short, Owen begins to fear an attack on the train by the Pasha’s enemies may be imminent.

Set in 1913, this, the final novel in the series, sees Captain Owen investigating the abduction of a schoolgirl.

Faced with a wealthy family who seem uninterested in finding out where she is and local police who seem determined to thwart his quest, the Mamur Zapt soon finds himself taking a path that leads into a world of hashish smugglers, gun runners and a potential plot to overthrow the government.