From Publishers Weekly
Pearce hits his stride with his third mystery (after 2005's
A Dead Man in Istanbul) to chronicle the international exploits of Sandor Seymour, a polyglot Scotland Yard detective who's just as engaging as Owen Gareth, the hero of Pearce's Mamur Zapt series set in early 20th-century Egypt. In 1912, Seymour leaves London's East End for Athens to investigate the poisoning of the cat of the Sultan of Turkey, who has been exiled to Greece. Given the perpetually strained relations between the Greeks and Ottomans and the broader political turmoil on the eve of WWI, the authorities fear the cat's death may presage an attempt on the sultan himself. Sure enough, a human death follows, and Seymour's mission gathers momentum and urgency. By effectively wedding prewar intrigue to an often humorous plot, Pearce should retain the loyalty of fans and attract new readers.
(Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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From Booklist
Pearce continues to chronicle the unlikely adventures of Sandor Seymour. Seymour, the multilingual Scotland Yard detective introduced in
A Dead Man in Trieste (2004) and further established in
A Dead Man in Istanbul (2005), is dispatched to Athens in 1913 to investigate the poisoning of a cat. Of course, it is no ordinary cat but rather the exiled sultan of Turkey's cat. To avoid any incident that might incite a war in the fragile Balkans, Seymour must prove that the sultan was not the intended target of an insidious international plot. Given the delicacy of his mission and the precarious nature of the political situation, he must proceed with caution as he peels away embedded layers of domestic deceit and intrigue in the sultan's household. Another fine entry in an unfailingly amusing historical series.
Margaret FlanaganCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
