The Face in The Cemetery

Egypt, 1914. It is the beginning of the war and Gareth Owen, Mamur Zapt and Head of Cairo's Secret Police, is unhappily rounding up enemy aliens. But nationality is a slippery thing in cosmopolitan Egypt. Who counts as German? And whose is the face in the cemetery? Owen would prefer to have to answer neither of these questions. He is preoccupied with missing guns (missing? in war time?) and dubious ghaffirs. Villages usually pick Dogberry-type simpletons as their watchmen. But what are these toughs doing here? And this heavily-armed, thumb-sucking girl? The face in the cat cemetery, though, refuses to go away and Owen comes to realise that it poses questions which are not just professional but also uncomfortably personal.