A Dead Man in Trieste - Hardcover

Pearce, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786714654 ISBN 13: 9780786714650

Publisher: Carroll & Graf, 2004

Synopsis

From award-winning British author, Michael Pearce, comes the first in a new series introducing Seymour of Special Branch. Trieste in 1906 is one of Europe’s great seaports, the Austrian Empire’s main outlet to the Mediterranean and the world beyond. But various nationalist movements are threatening to pull the place apart. The heavy-handed militarist regime has trouble keeping a lid on it, the secret police are everywhere, and now the British consul has gone missing. Was this the result of an ill-advised liaison? Could he have fallen afoul of the secret police, or the even more secret revolutionaries? The Austrian police are of course investigating, but the Foreign Office would prefer this matter to be handled with sensitivity. Britain has commercial interests in the port after all, so perhaps it would be wise to send someone out—someone very special from Special Branch who is capable of speaking the relevant languages; a good officer, but not someone British. That someone should be born here, lived here, but a member of, say, an East End immigrant family from somewhere in Europe. You can never quite rely on them. A bit dubious really, but just the man for the job.

About this title

Review

"A dead man is everyone's business." Or so the saying goes in Trieste, a politically divided city at the north end of the Adriatic Sea that, a century ago, was the Austro-Hungarian Empire's principal Mediterranean port--and now serves splendidly as the backdrop of A Dead Man in Trieste, the first installment in a new historical mystery series by Michael Pearce. It's in Trieste, in 1906, that a British consul named Lomax vanishes, spurring an investigation destined to expose an identity-falsification scandal, risk fueling nationalistic hatreds, and thrust a young sleuth into the arms of a free-spirited "fancy woman."

The detective in question is Sandor Seymour, reared by immigrant parents in London's working-class East End and now a multilingual officer with Special Branch. Dispatched to Trieste at the request of the British Foreign Office, it is Seymour's task--operating under the guise of an itinerant King's Messenger--to determine whether the eccentric Lomax left his post voluntarily, or was removed violently. Discovery of the consul's corpse, beaten and dumped into the sea, settles that question, but leaves others tantalizingly unanswered: Why had Lomax been roaming the docks on the night of his demise? With whom had he visited the cinema earlier that evening? Is his perishing somehow related to his falling out with an influential Serbian businessman? And why is Seymour suddenly being followed? Aided by a gruff Austrian inspector and a gaggle of bohemian artists, and pleasantly distracted by Lomax's model friend, Maddalena, Seymour must deal with revolutionaries, farcical "futurists," and his own family's political past as he tries to solve the consul's killing and prevent Trieste from becoming the fuse that ignites a world war.

British author Pearce, best recognized for his series featuring Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt in early 20th-century Cairo, Egypt (A Cold Touch of Ice, The Face in the Cemetery), brings to A Dead Man in Trieste his usual flair for convoluted plots, humorous characters, and deft crime-solving compromised on occasion by the vexatious demands of diplomacy. Seymour is a charming protagonist, displaced from his London beat to make sense of Trieste and, in sequels to come, resolve misdeeds at other British consulates and embassies across Europe. With the added incentive of seeing Maddalena once more--clothed or not--this series holds great promise, and the potential of introducing Pearce to a broader U.S. audience. --J. Kingston Pierce

About the Author

Pearce was raised in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. 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.

He has also published a number of "A Dead Man in..." mysteries, set in the period preceding World War 1 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 detail and setting.

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0786714654
• ISBN 13: 9780786714650
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320