Stuart Campbell has crafted a richly faceted novel taking full advantage of Cairo as an ancient centre of cultural and linguistic confluence. He weaves a tale of intrigue and duplicity that, through his descriptive brilliance, takes the reader beyond the façade of material culture into the complex histories and geopolitical realities of the region.
An occasional visitor to Cairo I found his descriptions of the city and its precincts astutely and artistically rendered. Whether in affluent Zamaleck or the City of the Dead he engages us allowing us to walk with his characters entering, as it were, an impressionistic Cairo transformed by the emotions and plight of the players. His work reveals familiar places, at a different time and under different social and political circumstances.
Though a sometimes a reluctant reader of fiction Cairo Mon Amour held my attention to the end. It has its heroes and its villains often with a little villainy in the heroes and heroism in the villains. But who are the heroes and the villains? Why has Bellamy been sent to Cairo in the first place? Is his great love really a Soviet spy? Is MI6 the real villain or the Egyptian army or the Israelis? What of the crafty Pierre?
His work makes thorough use of the Cold War back drop. Politically this is not some simple monochromatic rendition of Cold War dynamics but an intriguing and believable story set against the imminent outbreak of hostilities as Egypt prepares to take back control of the Suez canal and the Sinai.
Now when fundamentalism have taken all too prominent a role in the world, his treatment of the Abrahamic religions, their diversity and their consonance, is a timely reminder that those of us who follow such paths all have so much in common.
Obtain your copy from Goodreads, Amazon or the publishers Austin Macauley. Find more information about the book on Facebook.
Also visit the Cairo Mon Amour website.
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