Used Book – The Donkey's Corner, Michael Pearce

Cairo, 1908. Having arrived nearly thirty years earlier to restore order to Egypt's finances, the British are now entrenched. The Egyptian nationalist party is gaining momentum. In these circumstances, when a French national is abducted from the terrace of a grand hotel, the mamur zapt, head of Cairo's secret service, has good reason to suspect a political act. But the victim was kidnapped in front of a crowd of street vendors, donkey drivers, and cabbies, all of whom claim to have seen nothing... Could they all be accomplices? When a British man is abducted from the same spot, bewilderment reaches its peak, especially since, as always in this exuberant city, fanciful testimonies report improbable details and complicate the investigators' task. "Michael Pearce has created a new type of detective, the mamur zapt, the chief of the political police, an anti-racist Welshman. Through him, he tells the story of Egypt, its different layers of power [...] and describes the effects of colonialism. An urgent read for everyone." Nicolas Bemes, US Magazine