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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. Why had Prince Narouz hired the dahabeeyah? Surely not just to cruise to Luxor - the man has no interest in antiquities. And why was Miss Sekhmet on the boat anyway? Was it for the Prince's pleasure, or to embarrass him? Under heavy pressure from politicos and his own mistress, the strong-minded Zeinab, Owen steers a difficult course after a murderer....

Michael Pearce grew up in the (then) Anglo-Egyptian Sudan among the political and other tensions he draws on for his books. He returned there later to teach and retains a human rights interest in the area. His career has followed the standard academic rake's progress from teaching to writing to administration. He finds international politics a pallid imitation of academic ones.