The Pearls of Tangier — Sam Benady

It is the year 1789. Giovanni Bresciano, a young merchant from Gibraltar, half Genoese and half English, takes a ship across the Straits that lie between the Pillars of Hercules. He is off to Tangier on family business.
On board he strikes up a friendship with the lively young surgeon, Dr Lempriere, on his way at the request of the Sultan of Morocco to attend his favoured son and heir whose eyesight is becoming a cause for serious concern. Favours and gifts are an essential diplomatic tool with a ruling dynasty â€" a dynasty which has shown a tendency to switch its alliances with a certain ease.
Bresciano has no such an onerous task ahead. He simply has to extricate his sister, Lucia, from the seductive clutches of a handsome and ruthless fortune hunter and soothe his emotionally volatile aunt. Unfortunately his sister is as stubborn as she is young and infatuated. His task proves less than simple, but the last thing he expects is to be thrown in jail the day after his arrival and to find himself pitch­forked into an imbroglio of criminal and political dimensions.
And Morocco is not the safest of places for foreigner: the Sultan is dying and his second son, Muley Yazid â€" rapacious, cruel and ambitious, perhaps not even of sound mind â€" waits in the wings with an army to assert his own claim to the throne. He is also keen to stock his harem with a few European women with red hair â€" for which women he has a passion.
In England, His Gracious Majesty, King George III, depends on his Consul in Tangier, James Mario Matra, to defend Britain's interests in this explosive situation. Without the goodwill of the Moroccan ruler â€" whoever he might turn out to be â€" the fortress of Gibraltar across the narrow strait that separates the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa, can become vulnerable indeed: its land frontier with Spain can be closed as has happened in the past, leaving Gibraltar cut off from its supplies of food. British links with Morocco have to be protected and fostered at all costs.
But, Matra had a very fine gift, a treasure â€" the pearls of Tangier of the title â€" which he intended to employ to present to one or other of the candidates to the throne, depending how the winds of inheritance blow. And on the night of a splendid reception at the Consulate, there is a cry of 'Murder!' The enormously tall Scandinavian guarding the treasure that night, lies dead and the pearls have vanished.
No one has seen anything, the diplomatic guests are quick to take offence, the Consul cannot afford to make his loss public. So Bresciano, now out of jail, is called to investigate. He is hampered by his lack of Arabic and the absence of any kind of clues. Dr Lempriere, ever the optimist, helps as he can, and Muhammad â€" a street­wise urchin of dodgy morals, attaches himself to Bresciano and becomes his unofficial assistant.
The problems are compounded when a young woman in whom Bresciano takes an interest, disappears. And his sister's situation reaches a crisis. His attempts to foil an abduction has him breaking the law in a savage country where being a British subject will not protect him.
The cracking plot moves through the labyrinthine alleys of Tangier which becomes a character in its own right with its scents and sights and cries of 'Barak!' in the narrow streets as laden donkey are driven through. From the endearing and rascally Muhammad to the shrewd Governor of the town to the infuriating Lucia, the characters are strongly conveyed. So too are the time period and the historical reality â€" which permeate the novel without overpowering the action.
For Bresciano, a rather shy young man, this harrowing time in Tangier marks the beginning of a friendship with the young woman he rescues, a friendship that will continue in The Prince's Lady.
And for the reader there are the fictional characters and the real historical personalities â€" both the ones to be found within the covers of history books, and the ones drawn from the authors' family t