Dead Man in Barcelona - Hardcover

Pearce, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569475377 ISBN 13: 9781569475379

Publisher: Soho Constable, 2008

Synopsis

Praise for the Dead Man series:

“Picking up a new book by Michael Pearce reminds you why people enjoy reading mysteries.”—Denver Post

“The steady pace, atmospheric design, and detailed description re-create a complicated city. A recommended historical series.”—Library Journal

“Sheer fun.”—The Times (London)

“An unfailingly amusing historical series.”—Booklist

“Pearce again demonstrates his skill at making the past come alive and at seamlessly weaving actual political intrigues into his plot.”—Publishers Weekly

Barcelona, 1912—a city still recovering from the dramatic incidents of the so-called “Tragic Week” when Catalonian conscripts bound for the unpopular war in Spanish Morocco had rebelled at the city’s dockside against the royalist forces. In the fighting, many were killed, and afterward, even more imprisoned, including an Englishman, who was later found dead in his cell.

The dead man had been a prominent businessman in Gibraltar, so what was he doing in Barcelona? And how did he really meet his end—murdered, in a prison cell? The case, in Gibraltar’s view, cries out for investigation—and by someone independent of the Spanish authorities. So Scotland Yard dispatches Seymour of the Special Branch.

Michael Pearce was raised in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He trained as a Russian interpreter but later moved to an academic career, first as a lecturer in English and the History of Ideas and then as an administrator. Pearce now lives in southwest London and is best known as the author of the award-winning Mamur Zapt books.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Pearce lives in southwest London and is best known as the author of the award-winning Mamur Zapt books.

From Publishers Weekly

Pearce's solid fifth pre-WWI historical to feature Sandor Seymour of Special Branch (after 2007's A Dead Man in Tangier) takes the Scotland Yard detective to Barcelona, Spain, to crack a two-year-old cold case—the death, while in a Spanish prison, of an English businessman, Sam Lockhart. Lockhart was arrested during the bloody riots that erupted in Barcelona in 1910 after reserve troops refused orders to serve in Spanish Morocco. Seymour's assignment enables him to reunite with Chantale de Lissac, his half-Arab, half-French romantic interest, who uses her people skills to help him learn more about the hidden personal and political passions that may have led to Lockhart's murder. As usual, Pearce is more concerned with—and more successful at—bringing his chosen milieu to life than stumping the reader with a puzzle. Fans of the author's Gareth Owen series (The Mark of the Pasha, etc.) will note similarities between Chantale and Owen's independent-minded Egyptian girlfriend-turned-wife. (Dec.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Soho Constable
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1569475377
• ISBN 13: 9781569475379
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256