New Crime Novels set in Modern Egypt

Traditionally, one of my favourite authors/series has been Elizabeth's Peters's Amelia Peabody series set in Victorian England and Egypt. I'm so far behind in reading her I'm not sure I can claim her as a favourite at the moment but she has left me with a fondness for Egypt-set crime which was why I was so looking forward to what turned out to be the incredibly disappointing The Cairo Diary by Maxim Chattam and why I sought out Clare Curzon's Guilty Knowledge several years ago.

Here are a couple of modern-day crime novels set in Egypt which are available now or will be very soon (blurbs from amazon):


Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick, Minotaur 6 June 2011:
Texas high school teacher Jocelyn Shore and her cousin Kyla are on a once-in-a-lifetime guided tour of Egypt with a motley crew of fellow travellers when the most odious of the bunch, a nosy, disagreeable woman named Millie Owens, takes a fatal fall off of one of the great pyramids. And that's only the beginning. From the guide who always seems to be off on his mobile phone having the most urgent conversations to the young woman who begs off of almost every excursion claiming to be ill to the supposed married couple who can hardly speak to each other, Jocelyn and Kyla's tour group is full of people who may or may not be exactly who they say they are. And one of them may very well be a murderer.

Janice Hamrick's "Death on Tour" is a delightful debut and the beginning of a wonderfully charming cozy series featuring the determined teacher Jocelyn Shore, who always seems to get wrapped up in a mystery against her usually very sound judgement.

The Herring on the Nile by L C Tyler, Macmillan, 1 July 2011:
In an effort to rejuvenate his flagging career, crime novelist Ethelred Tressider decides to set his new book in Egypt and embarks on a ‘research trip’ with his literary agent, Elsie Thirkettle, in tow. No sooner has their cruise on the Nile begun, however, than an attempt is made on Ethelred’s life.

When the boat’s engine explodes and a passenger is found bloodily murdered, suspicion falls on everyone aboard – including a third-rate private eye, two individuals who may or may not be undercover police, and Ethelred himself. As the boat drifts out of control, though, it seems that events are being controlled by a party far more radical than anyone could have guessed.

Herring on the Nile is an ingenious mystery, and a darkly funny tribute to Agatha Christie and the golden age of crime fiction.