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THE LAST CUT by Michael Pearce Poisoned Pen Press, February 2004 240 pages $24.95 ISBN: 1590580672 Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Author Michael Pearce grew up in Sudan and has a deep understanding of Egypt and that part of the Middle East. Given today's difficulties, this novel has much to teach us. Add to that some interesting characters, an intriguing tradition-bound activity as well as some bizarre practices, and you have all the makings of a fine novel.

Gareth Owen is the Mamur Zapt, chief of Cairo's secret police in an earlier era. As such Owen is responsible for maintaining the peace between competing religious groups and classes in the turbulent city. It is a time before modern transportation, a time of British rule, a time when the ritual annual flooding of the rich delta farm lands by the swollen Nile is a venerated and celebrated event.

When the river reaches its peak at the head of the delta after Spring rains, an earthen dam is breached in a carefully orchestrated event. The waters of the Nile roar down a canal through the city, signaling the opening of dams all along the waterways. Each year, the ritual of the preparation is handled by a different group of laborers, one year by the Jews, the next by Arabs. Because this is to be the last year of this canal flooding, there is contention as to which group should make the final cut.

There are other rituals but in the days just before the cutting, the body of a young unmarried girl is found in the canal and one of the regulator gates in the diversion dam at the north edge of the city is damaged by sabotage. Was the girl murdered or did she die of a different kind of cut -- ritual female circumcision. Are the two events connected? Was the dynamiting a political act of sabotage?

In addition to trying to ferret out answers to these questions, the Mamur Zapt must try to quell unrest, find the dam bomber and help identify a possible murderer. The twists and turns rival the alleys and streets of an African souk in their unregulated and demented-appearing mazes. The more Owen discovers the more layers are revealed to him. In the end, although readers will have to pay attention, all the important pieces and players are identified and laid in their proper place in this intriguing and enjoyable novel of dusty, hot, turbulent Egypt.

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, June 2004

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