The Women of the Souk

June 6, 2016
Set in Egypt in 1913, Pearce’s 19th Mamur Zapt mystery (after 2014’s The Mouth of the Crocodile) exemplifies the main strengths of this long-running series—dry humor coupled with a subtle depiction of the tensions created by the British presence. For example, the British are clueless enough to introduce the Boy Scout movement to a country where for many citizens “tracking and living rough was the real thing.” Capt. Gareth Owen, the head of Special Branch, finds himself in a delicate situation after he’s sought out by a sixth-form schoolgirl named Layla. Layla is distraught over the disappearance of her classmate Marie Kewfik, who has been absent from school for over a week, and whose well-connected family refuses to say anything about her whereabouts. Recovering Marie, who turns out to be kidnapped, is made more difficult by the attitude of the girl’s uncle, who doesn’t like his niece or women in general. Witty dialogue compensates for the less than compelling main plot line.

June 1, 2016
The Mamur Zapt brings his very specialized set of skills to bear on a kidnapping, with predictably unpredictable results. It isn't bad enough that wealthy schoolgirl Marie Kewfik has disappeared; it turns out that she was snatched from right under the nose of Ali Shawquat, the talented but impoverished musician who was hopelessly in love with her. The kidnappers, in accord with the protocol of 1913 Cairo, are in no hurry to press their demands, and Ali Fingari, Marie's wealthy eldest uncle, has done nothing but hand off the negotiations to his son Ali Osman Fingari, whose greatest talent seems to be for brightly self-effacing vanity. So Marie's schoolmate Layla, sensing a power vacuum that could doom her friend, appeals to the Mamur Zapt, Capt. Gareth Cadwallader Owen, the Head of Special Branch (The Mouth of the Crocodile, 2015, etc.), only because she's decided not to pursue her first choice, his wife Zeinab, whom Layla sees as a shining example of the New Woman. The case falls outside Owen's purview--his involvement is supposed to be limited to political matters--but between the determination of Layla, the schoolmates who are ready to demonstrate on the missing girl's behalf, and his boss, the Khedive, Owen finds himself pursuing it anyway. In Pearce's decorously circumlocutory colonial Egypt, however, it's understood from the beginning that both the criminals and the variously distraught family will exclude him from the negotiations. Fortunately, a series of other crimes, from hashish dealing to murder, end up leading back to the matter of Marie's abduction. Hands-down the least suspenseful kidnapping story you're ever likely to read, with the toothless kidnappers and killers mostly remaining anonymous even after they're captured. Fans of this long-running series, however, will find all the accustomed gravely loopy charm.

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June 1, 2017

In the latest entry of a long-running and often overlooked historical series set in Egypt prior to World War I, Mamur Zapt (police head) Gareth Owen is the link between the British government and the Khedive (viceroy) in Cairo. The kidnapping of a schoolgirl sets the stage for Owen's investigations. Pearce has an excellent eye for details of the light and weather in Egypt and brings the city and people there to life. VERDICT The concerns and issues that Owen faces in his work will sound all too real to readers familiar with the current situation in the Middle East.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2016
Set in 1913 Cairo, Pearce's latest focuses on the kidnapping of Marie Kewfik, the daughter of one of the city's richest men. Her friend Layla begs Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt, to find Marie before her kidnappers kill her. When he receives the same request from the highest levels of government, Owen knows he has no choice, but he also knows this will need to be handled with the utmost delicacy. After some initial investigation, he begins to wonder if the kidnapping had to do with the fact that Marie was friendly with Ali Shawquat, a poor but musically gifted young man. But the more Owen seeks to unravel the story and determine how to get Marie released without setting off a chain reaction that might result in disastrous consequences, the more he realizes that this is less about a kidnapping than it is about resentment and tension between rich and poor and between women who want to be equals and men who want to keep them in their place. Pearce's engrossing story successfully juxtaposes the volatile atmosphere of early twentieth-century Cairo against a tale full of culture, history, charm, humor, and romance. A fine addition to this excellent series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)