Cold Touch of Ice

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…

Praise for Michael Pearce: ‘Pearce takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour’ Sunday Times ‘Marvellously convoluted… Dryly and deeply funny’ Literary Review ‘Highly recommended’ Sunday Telegraph ‘Pearce’s secret policeman is implausibly likeable’ TLS ‘This is high comedy from a practiced hand. The control is effortless, the wit as sharp as in Death of an Effendi’ The Times

Michael Pearce was raised in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, where his fascination for language began. He later trained as a Russian interpreter but moved away from languages to follow an academic career, first as a lecturer in English and the History of Ideas, and then as an administrator. Michael Pearce now lives in London and is best known as the author of the award-winning Mamur Zapt books.