"The ancient city of Cairo is a feverish tangle of the old and the new, of the superrich and the desperately poor, with inequality and corruption everywhere. It's a place where grudges and long-buried secrets can fester, and where people can disappear in the blink of an eye. Makana, a former Sudanese police inspector forced to flee to Cairo, is now struggling to make ends meet as a private detective. In need of money, he takes a case from the notoriously...

"Atbara, Sudan, 1913. A dead man is fished out of the River Nile. An accident or something more sinister? A visiting Pasha from the Royal Household believes it was murder and that he himself was the intended target. He insists that the Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedives Secret Police, escorts him on his return train journey to Cairo, for protection. It's to be an eventful voyage"--Dust jacket flap.