The Janissary File

In late 1982 a woman was found murdered in a ditch near a village in LowerEgypt. She was not the usual victim of some family feud or a crime of honour,but a well-known personality, and the subject of parliamentary debates andvitriolic attacks in the media. A formidable, if slightly arrogant, Turkish lawyer,she had been pursuing a ruthless campaign to acquire vast stretches ofagricultural and urban land that had been turned into Islamic trusts centuriesearlier by the Ottoman ruling class and were later dissolved by President Nasser. Thousands of Egyptians with genuine or alleged Turkish ancestors were luredinto a scheme to get rich by cannibalising the age-old family trusts. Yet there wereothers with different motives-they wanted to get rid of a troublesome foreignerwho in their view was abusing the law and had become a danger to society. The fictitious plot unfolds against the real social and legal background of Egyptin the 1980s with the property campaign at its peak. This is a historical novel that will appeal to those who love a good detective storyas well as to anyone interested in the Middle East, its history and its present.