A dark thriller set mainly in GLASGOW
Late 1930s thriller set in EGYPT and PALESTINE
17th September 2025
Cairo Gambit by S W Perry – late 1930s thriller set in Egypt and Palestine.
Archie Nevenden, a successful businessman working in oil and as a part time theatre impresario, goes missing in Cairo. His daughter Prim, whom he has not seen for many years, travels to Egypt from the UK to help in the search. Meanwhile the British Government are suspicious that he may have defected to the Germans with his extensive knowledge of oil in the Middle East. Harry Taverner, a spy but supposedly working for the British Council, is sent out to shadow her. They have a ‘chance meeting’ on the flying boat transporting them both to Egypt – and they team up to look for Archie and find out what has happened to him. But Prim suspects that Harry is not quite what he says he is.
In Cairo they encounter a selection of pretty unsavoury characters and it appears that Archie had not led an entirely squeaky clean life. Their investigation leads takes into Palestine which was in the later 30s ruled by the British under a mandate from the League of Nations. The British do not come out of this smelling of roses. Promises about the future were made to both to the increasing number of Jewish settlers moving from Europe and the States and to the Palestinians who had farmed the land for generations. The promises made to each were not compatible one with the other. There were skirmishes between the two… Palestine was then (as it is now for largely the same reasons) a dangerous place.
The search for Archie, or for what had happened to him, is convoluted with many a false lead. Lives are put in danger. We flit between Cairo, Palestine and the Sinai Desert alongside the banks of the Suez Canal, The book moves to a conclusion that answers all our questions.
Cairo in the late 1930s come through especially well. Several years after independence was granted to Egypt, there is still a very colonial feel amongst the bustle and noise of a major city
Cairo Gambit is a good and exciting read that will immerse you in the time in which it is set.
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