THE MAMUR ZAPT AND THE SPOILS OF EGYPT

Someone has been smuggling priceless antiquities out of British-controlled Egypt, maintains imperious American visitor Enid Skinner, and now that same someone has tried to kill her by pushing her under the wheels of a tram. So Gareth Cadwallader Owen, head of Cairo's secret police, has two new headaches: identifying the powers behind the possible smuggling ring--who may well have killed two workmen in a pair of more successful accidents at an excavation site at Der el Bahari--and dealing with Miss Skinner, who never forgets that her uncle may succeed Teddy Roosevelt as president. Despite some promising skirmishes between Miss Skinner and Owen's equally strong-willed lover, Zeinab Al Nuri, this sixth slice of 1908 Egyptian intrigue, like last year's The Mamur Zapt and the Girl in the Nile, lacks the riot of local colors and fragrances that made Pearce's earlier entries so memorable.