Michael Pearce

Michael Pearce (1933–2022) was a British writer of historical fiction and police procedurals, known for his series of nineteen Mamur Zapt detective novels set in Egypt during the opening years of the 20th century.

Covering a period from approximately 1908 through 1920, the Mamur Zapt novels feature a detective named Gareth Cadwallader Owen whose career and cases reflect the history of British colonialism in the Nile Valley, as well as the history of Egyptology, Coptic Christian and Muslim relations, European privileges via the Capitulations, and more.

Early life Pearce was raised in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

Career As an adult, he trained as a Russian interpreter during the Cold War, and subsequently became involved with Amnesty International.

His first novel, The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet, was published in 1988. That was the start of a Mamur Zapt series of mysteries.

Pearce also published a number of A Dead Man in... mysteries, set in the period preceding the First World War and featuring Sandor Seymour, an officer of Scotland Yard's Special Branch who is sent by the British Foreign Office to deal with various crimes involving members of the British diplomatic service. These mysteries are notable for their attention to period details and settings.

Pearce's The Mamur Zapt and the Spoils of Egypt (1992) won the Crime Writers' Association's Last Laugh Award for funniest crime novel, and his Death of an Effendi (1999) was shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Award for best historical crime novel.

Death Pearce died in 2022.