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It's 1909, and Cairo is the murder capital of the world. Deaths are two a piastre. But the death of an effendi is something different. Effendis-the Egyptian elite-are important. Especially if they happen to be foreign. When effendi Tvardovsky is shot at a gathering of financiers in Crocodilopolis, the ancient City of the Crocodiles, Mamur Zapt Gareth Owen-Chief of Cairo's Secret Police-is called in to investigate. In some countries, if someone goes for a walk or a boat ride with the Head of the Secret Police and doesn't come back, it's best not to ask any questions.

For millennia, Egypt has depended upon the waters of the Nile. Its annual floods fertilize the land. By the time Britain extends its dominion over Egypt, the Cairo Barrage is the key to control, its name taken from the French term meaning a dam or irrigation channel designed to increase a river's depth or to divert its flow. An attempt to blow up the Manufiyah regulator in the Barrage is not a petty matter. Gareth Owen, The Mamur Zapt, Chief of Cairo's Secret Police, is hurriedly summoned. He hasn't a clue what a regulator is.

Michael Pearce's tenth irresistible adventure for Colonial Egypt's the Mamur Zapt is fresh, funny, and "Still as fertile as your favourite oasis." Inevitably, as the tide of Nationalism sweeps the British Protectorate towards the realities of the dawning Twentieth Century, New Egypt is eroding the ways of the Old. But, as Gareth Owen, head of Cairo's Secret Police well knows, "The Old Egypt had a habit of rising up every so often and giving the New an almighty kick in the teeth." It's called the Tree of the Virgin.

In the Cairo of 1908, the city lives-and dies-by its cafE culture. But for all restaurant businesses, then and now, the protection rackets pose a problem. And the city's cafEs are experiencing a sudden upsurge in threats from various gangs.

Someone is running a campaign to discredit Cairo's senior police officials.

Cairo, 1910. Captain Owen, The Mamur Zapt, is the head of Egypt's Political CID in the heyday of British Rule. He is ultimately responsible for law and order in the Khedive's Cairo. When the rules, whether obvious or hidden, are flouted, he steps into action-although it sometimes looks like he's merely stepped sideways, out of the way. Now it is the end of the boom, leaving banks beleaguered and borrowers in trouble whether the poorest land-working fellahin or the richest land-owning Pashas. Then a civil servant suspiciously dies at his desk.

It's 1928 in Melbourne and Phryne is asked to investigate the puzzling death of a famous author and illustrator of fairy stories. To do so, Phryne takes a job within the women's magazine that employed the victim and finds herself enmeshed in her colleagues' deceptions. But while Phryne is learning the ins and outs of magazine publishing first hand, her personal life is thrown into chaos.

Edwardian Egypt and archaeology go hand in hand, not just for the antiquarian but for the men, whether poor fellahin or rich merchant, who profit from the illegal export of antiquities. Captain Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt or head of Cairo's Secret Police, turns his attention to the trade when Miss Skinner arrives. She's a woman with the habit of asking awkward questions. And because her uncle might be the next President of the United States, her queries demand answers.

1909 Egypt. It's easy to go adrift in the complex political currents swirling through a country that has long been "advised" by the British after the mess it made of its finances, but now swelling with nationalism. And you can't discount the self-interest of the Khedive, the Royal Family, and of the country's pashas. Nevertheless, Captain Gareth Owen, Head of the Cairo Secret Police, has to ask, "Where's the body'" The girl, perhaps a woman of ill repute but one definitely lost overboard, had been glimpsed lying on a sandbank in the Nile. Then she vanished.

While riding home to lunch on his donkey, Fairclough of Customs is rudely unseated by shots fired from behind. The incident is but the first of a series of attacks seemingly aimed at public officials. Even Captain Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt, British head of Cairo's Secret Police, barely escapes.