A classic murder mystery from the award-winning Michael Pearce, in which The Mamur Zapt races to prevent an explosion of religious violence in the Cairo of the 1900s.

Cairo in the 1900s. When the body of a dog is discovered in a Coptic tomb - a Muslim insult that could spark an explosion among the Christian community - the Mamur Zapt, British head of Cairo's secret police, is called in to investigate.

Equally volatile is a command from an English Member of Parliament that the Mamur Zapt, Gareth Owen, show the MP's niece the sights of the city. When a dancing dervish is stabbed before the lady's very eyes, Owen begins to uncover a plot to set Cairo's ethnic communities at each other's throats...