Book Six of The Masked Man of Cairo Out Now!!!

 

It's been a while since I posted, and that's because I've been busy traveling and writing. I have just released The Case of the Disappearing Dervish in ebook and paperback. A blurb is below.

A religious scandal. A deadly homecoming.
Moustafa Ghani El Souwaim has come far in life. Raised illiterate in a remote village in the Soudan, he set out at sixteen to better himself. His journey took him to the great archaeological sites of Africa, where he became a leading researcher versed in several ancient and modern languages. His life took an even stranger turn when he teamed up with Sir Augustus Wall and his street boy sidekick Faisal to solve murders.
Now there’s been a murder in his village. A local religious mendicant has been found bludgeoned to death and Moustafa’s cousin, who is in the same religious order, has vanished and is assumed to be the killer. Moustafa must return to his roots to clear his cousin’s name and reunite with the family he left behind.
But can Moustafa really go home again after having changed so much, and does that home even want him?

 

You can get it here. Kindle Unlimited members get to read it for free! 

Writing Update!

Hello everyone!

I just got back from southern Egypt, where I was researching Book Six in my Masked Man of Cairo series, called The Case of the Disappearing Dervish. Moustafa has to go back home to the Sudan in order to solve a mystery, and of course Sir Augustus and Faisal come along. It will be out later this year.

I'm also launching a parallel series starring Cordelia, who doesn't get as much page time as she deserves in the main series. Tentatively called Cordelia's Cairo Casebook, it starts with Cordelia Cracks the Case. That's in production and will be out in a couple of months.

I'll soon be diving back into the The Berlin Murders with book three, A Summertime Murder in Berlin. Katherine and friends get tangled up in some pretty nasty business! I'm also (slowly) working on the Tech Scavengers science fiction series.

You can watch the progress of all these projects on the sidebar to the right. You can also follow along by subscribing to my monthly newsletter.

If you want to see more photos of my travels, check out my Instagram!

My Travel Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

 

My 2023 was a busy one for travel, with lots of trips to familiar and not-so-familiar spots.

I went twice to Tangier, my favorite North African city, to show my nephew around. We did some day trips to Asilah and Tetouan and some short hikes. Now he loves Morocco as much as I do! I also went to Egypt for research and my usual Oxford summer stay.

The big trip, however, was living for almost three months in Victoria, British Columbia. I'm Canadian but moved out of the country when I was eight and this was the first time I'd gone back for a significant period. While the town itself was only OK (little culture, too many junkies) the surrounding nature was fantastic. The temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest has to be seen to be believed. I never knew there were that many shades of green!

 

 

 

So what's on the agenda for 2024? Next week I'm off to Egypt again to write Book Six of The Masked Man of Cairo series. The Case of the Disappearing Dervish sees Moustafa having to go back to his village in Nubia to find a lost relative. Sir Augustus and Faisal come along to help. Much of my trip I'll be studying the Nubian villages along the border. Sadly, I can't get into the Sudan given the current situation. I hope it improves soon. The Sudanese people have endured way too much war in recent decades.

There will also be a return trip to Canada, Morocco, Oxford, and maybe a new country. It's been a while since I've gone to a country I've never visited before. My wife and I are thinking Hungary. I've heard Budapest is beautiful. Have any of you been there?

I'll post occasionally here on the blog, but for travel photos the best place to follow me is on my Instagram account. I also include travel articles in my newsletter. You get two free ebooks just for signing up!

Hope you have a great travel year! What do you have planned?

A New Website and other News

I've got a new website! It's been a while since I had one, so I hired designer Stuart Grant to design a website for author Sean McLachlan. I think it looks pretty good. It's still being tweaked, though, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to add them in the comments section.

In other news, I'm back in Oxford for my usual summer research in the Bodleian Library. This year I'm doing research for my upcoming Weimar historical mystery series, as well as some reading on the Sudan in anticipation of a trip there in the winter. Fingers crossed on that one.

On the 16th of this month I'll be releasing the next issue of Sean's Travels and Tales, my monthly newsletter that comes out on the 16th of every month. If you sign up via my website, you also get two of my books, Radio Hope and Tangier Bank Heist, for free! Not a bad deal, eh?

A Coup Interrupted My Writing (and other news)

Well, this hasn't happened before.

I was planning a trip to research my next book, and now I can't go because there's been a coup.

I wantd Book Six in my Masked Man of Cairo series to be The Case of the Disappearing Dervish. This would have seen Moustafa returning to his village in the Sudan to solve a mystery, with Sir Augustus and Faisal coming along to help.

Sadly, last month while I was in Alexandria and planning a trip to Khartoum in December, the military in the Sudan overthrew the transitional council set up after the fall of dictator Omar al-Bashir and have arrested the civilian prime minister. Now the army is shooting peaceful protestors in the streets.

It's a horrible situation and I feel bad for the Sudanese people. When I plan to visit a new country, I often think of the people I will meet there, future friends I don't know yet. Now those friends are in serious danger and their economy is collapsing. I hope Sudan gets through this crisis and gets the democratic government it has so long deserved.

In happier news, the print edition of The Case of the Asphyxiated Alexandrian: The Masked Man of Cairo Book 5 has just been released. You can get it on Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazon outlets as well as several other online vendors.

I'm working on several projects right now, including a ghostwritten series for a client, a trio of prequel novellas for the Cairo series detailing the adventures of all three protagonists before they met, a science fiction series, and another historical mystery series.

If you want to keep up to date with my travels and writing projects, subscribe to my newsletter. An issue comes out once every other month and contains a travel article, updates on my work, and a coupon for a free or discounted ebook. Issue 17 comes out later this week!

Military History Photo Friday: The Pharaoh Ramesses II Smiting the Enemies of Egypt

This carving is from the National Museum in Cairo and shows Pharaoh Ramesses II (1279-1212 BC) smiting the traditional enemies of Egypt. Shown from left to right are a Nubian, a Libyan, and an Asiatic (perhaps a Hittite). The "smiting pose" was a popular one for pharaonic imagery. Ramesses has an axe in his hand.

Ramesses II campaigned against all three of these peoples, but is most famous for his long war with the Hittites, an empire based in what is now Turkey that had spread into the Levant and threatened Egypt. His victory at the Battle of Kadesh was recorded in a long and bombastic text that was copied onto many later buildings.

Sorry for the grubby picture and the light reflection. The National Museum needs to clean its display cases!

Military History Photo Friday: Traditional African Weapons

A collection of Kpinga, a type of throwing knife used by the Azande people of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. They were equipped with various blades to increase the risk of cutting when thrown. They were high status items, only used by elite warriors (it must have taken some training to throw one accurately!) and were also given as part of the bride price when a man wanted to get married.

Last week I blogged about an interesting collection of African shields at the Ethnological Museum in Cairo. It's one of many attractions in that wonderful city that I got to visit while writing my next novel, The Masked Man of Cairo, which I'm happy to say is almost done.

Besides the shields, the museum also has a collection of African weapons, mostly, I believe, from the Sudan and captured during the Anglo-Sudan War, when the British fought the Mahdi from 1896-99. Like with the shields, I'm hardly an expert, so any help identifying these objects would be highly appreciated.

All photos copyright Sean McLachlan. Sorry about the quality of some of them. The display cases are in desperate need of a good cleaning!

Various knives and cleavers.

The sign says "sticks used by drummers" but they look like clubs to me, and are in the weapons room, after all.

A variety of spears. The broad-leafed blades are typical of those carried by the Mahdi's army.

The top broadsword was a typical type used by the Mahdi's men. The sword on the bottom has a sheath made of crocodile skin. What better way to show off your manliness?

Military History Photo Friday: African Shields

A variety of shields. The small round ones in the center are Ethiopian. One on the left has decorated brass fittings. The one next to it is made of hippopotamus hide. I believe the other shields are from the Sudan and Kenya, but I'm not sure. That skinny one on the lower left is a Dinka shield. The Dinka are from south Sudan and their shields only covered the hand, with the rod being used to parry blows. The shield on the right just above the elephant tusk is made of a turtle shell.

One of the more unusual museums I visited on my recent trip to Cairo was the Ethnological Museum. This is a very old-school museum with displays that don't look like they've been changed much in the past fifty years. It contains a good collection of costume, day-to-day objects, and weapons and armor. This includes an impressive array of East African shields that I'm showing here. In the upper floor is the Ethnographic Society with a lovely Victorian lecture hall and a sizeable library.

Located just off Tahrir Square, the heart of the famous 2011 revolution, it's one of the best guarded museums I have ever seen. Part of the grounds have been converted into a police headquarters. To get onto the property I had to go through a metal detector and show my passport. Then a cop with a machine gun escorted me to the museum. From there a museum official followed me from room to room until I left. No one is stealing these shields!

I'm far from an expert on African shields, although I am familiar with the Ethiopian forms. Unfortunately there was no signage in this room to help me. My identifications should thus be taken with a grain of salt. Any help identifying these fascinating pieces of African militaria would be highly appreciated!

The top shield is made of the plastron (belly part of the shell) of a giant turtle.

Two more shields. Like the vast majority of the shields in this collection, they are made of animal hide, which was strong enough to counter blows from clubs, arrows, and spears, but useless against bullets.

Two Ethiopian style shields. They may actually be from Sudan as this shield type was used there as well. They may, in fact, have been captured during the Anglo-Sudan War, when the British fought the Mahdi from 1896-99. Several weapons in the collection certainly come from the Mahdist army. I'll be showing those in a later post.