This is the second in the series I've tried. Like the Egyptian setting and I he characterizations. Plots, not surprisingly, are primarily political, not really my copy and f tea, but enjoyable , all. In all ( )

Captain Garth Owen is the Mamur Zapt, the title given to the British head of Cairo's secret police. It's a job that keeps him deeply involved in the investigation of political matters. This first book of the series takes place in 1908 at at time when Egypt was a place of turmoil and political unrest. When an attempted assassination of a local politician occurs, the matter seems at first to be a personal revenge attack, but before long Captain Owen believes there's more to the story than he originally believed. This investigation is made even more difficult due to his current duty of protecting the “return of the carpet”, a large, black cloth that covers the Ka'ba at the annual hajj, which is returned to Cairo at the conclusion of Ramadan. Various groups may be planning to use the parade and celebration as an opportunity to commit some violent acts.

I was fascinated by the very complex political background of the early 20th century. It was interesting to watch the main character try to navigate the British, French, the Egyptian overlapping but clearly separate interests. The social background is equally fascinating.

I thought this was a great start to a series I hadn't been aware of. On the negative side, there are numerous characters with unfamiliar names and titles that require the reader to pay close attention or lose track of which character is which. I thought it was worth the effort though, since many of these characters play roles in future books. I definitely plan to read more of this series.
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not a spoiler, a synopsis:
The author of this book has obviously researched this time period very well and has spent a lot of time researching the political history of Britain's involvement in Egypt as well. To me, that was the plus in this story; I enjoyed very much the historical part. However, although it was supposed to be a mystery story, it wasn't very mysterious.

Set in Egypt, in 1908, the main character of this book is known as the Mamur Zapt, who was like the head of the secret police with wide-ranging powers, including the ability to search any home without a search warrant, and to enter any building at any time. This may not seem like a big deal, but the Mamur Zapt was British, not Egyptian. Even though Egypt at this time was effectively independent, it was still being ruled by Britain. I did not realize this, and that was incredibly interesting. Understandably, there were many political factions that wanted the British out and wanted to rule Egypt independently, and at the time, there were a great number of terrorist "clubs" that one could belong to. In this story, the Mamur Zapt comes to investigate the near killing of an important but nasty and corrupt politician. His would-be killer is a member of the fellahin (the peasants), who was set up to kill this guy (Nuri); he is arrested, but the Mamur Zapt (whose real name is Cadwallader Owen, from Wales), has a funny feeling that there's more to the plot than just the simple revenge killing. But that's the least of Owen's problem; in just a few days, the city will be the site of an important ceremony called "the return of the carpet," and Owen believes that there will be some kind of terrorist activity during this important religious holiday. He and his men, and the Egyptian police inspector Mahmoud must try to stop whatever is going to happen from happening.

As a mystery, sorry, just not that interesting; however, this is the first in the series so I'll try the next one. These books do come highly recommended, so I'm not giving up. ( )