The Fig Tree Murder - Softcover

Pearce, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006499686 ISBN 13: 9780006499688

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1998

Synopsis

From the award-winning Michael Pearce, comes a delightful murder mystery set in Egypt in 1908. A body is found on the tracks of a new electric railway and the Mamur Zapt is called in to investigate.

Cairo, 1908. It’s called the Tree of the Virgin, a site of religious interest, perilously close to the construction site of the new electric railway. Sinister power groups are jostling for position, but who dumped the body of the humble villager on the track?

When the Mamur Zapt begins to pick his way through the local and national power structures, he has to ask, what is the significance of the Fig Tree? Does it matter that the caravans for Mecca gather only a mile or so away? And what of the ostrich that passed in the night?

About this title

Review:

Praise for Michael Pearce:

‘Sheer fun’ The Times

‘Effortlessly funny and engaging’ Literary Review

Michael Pearce’s light touch and witty dialogue make this series a continuing delight’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Urbane, intelligent and never patronising, Pearce writes about Egypt with the observant eye of the lover who sees yet forgives all faults’ – Val McDermid

From the Back Cover:

Why was the body put on the line? Did someone want to halt the progress of the new railway out from Cairo to the ‘City of Pleasure’ being built in the suburbs? Or was it just another traditional revenge killing?

To answer these questions the Mamur Zapt, British Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, has to look both in the luxurious quarters of the dazzling New Heliopolis and in the more humble houses of the dead man’s village and in neither place are things quite as straightforward as they seem. What is the significance of the Tree of the Virgins? Does it matter that the gathering place for the Mecca Caravan is only a mile or two away? And what of the ostrich that passed in the night?

“Effortlessly funny and engaging. Packed, as ever, with fact, flavour and the kind of insouciance which makes history lighter than air”
PHILIP OAKES, 'Literary Review'

“Michael Pearce’s light touch and witty dialogue make this series a continuing delight”
SUSANNA YAGER, 'Sunday Telegraph'

“Urbane, intelligent and never patronising, Pearce writes about Egypt with the observant eye of the lover who sees yet forgives all faults”
VAL MCDERMID, 'Manchester Evening News'

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0006499686
• ISBN 13: 9780006499688
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192