Fans of Elizabeth Peters will view Egypt through a different lens--but the real flavor of this 14-book series is Graham Greene or, given Pearce's sense of irony, Eric Ambler....
The Mamur Zapt, head of Cairo's CID in the heydey of (the indirect) British rule, focused on political, not police, matters. With the bustling new century, the loosening of imperial ties, and the rise of nationalism, his was a busy office. The attempted assassination of a veteran politician raises the spectre of a major terrorist statement at the capital's principal religious festival where the faithful celebrate the Return of the Holy Carpet from Mecca.
Easily navigating multiple nationalities, three principal languages, and four competing legal systems, not to mention the intricacies of shadow and actual governments, Captain Owen, the Welsh incumbent, bolsters the Mamur Zapt's office with the aid of a host of memorable characters.
In his 1988 debut, Michael Pearce, who grew up in the (then) Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, "memorably navigates the swirling cultural and political cross-currents of his chosen period and place, bringing to an historian's confidence the creative intelligence of a born novelist."--John Coleman, Sunday Times