In this classic murder mystery from Michael Pearce's award-winning series, set in the Egypt of the 1900s, the Mamur Zapt investigates the murder of an Italian man in the backstreets of Cairo. Cairo, 1908. When an Italian man is murdered in the city's back streets, there is concern that this could be some kind of ethnic cleansing. Were the guns in his warehouse anything to do with it? Gareth Owen – the Mamur Zapt – has to find out fast. And then there are other difficult questions. What are Trudi von Ramsberg and Gertrude Bell really doing in Cairo? As the Mamur Zapt is drawn deeper into the investigation, he's not the only one who has problems over where his allegiance lies...