City of gold. Len Deighton. 1992.

January 1942. Rommel’s seemingly invincible Afrika Korps is at the gates of Egypt, perhaps soon to threaten Cairo itself.

In the heady confusion of war, rumours and counter-rumours flow thick and fast. But one thing is certain - Rommel has a spy in the city: a source so well-informed that the German commander knows , in advance, every movement of the forces that oppose him.

Somewhere, in the teeming streets and bazaars, the British must find him. But Cairo is a city of fool’s gold, where nothing can be taken at face value. Beneath every layer of intrigue lies another, as the city heaves with Egyptian discontent at British rule and Jewish gunrunners seize the chance to arm their homeland. Meanwhile, desert raiders, black marketeers and deserters are all enmeshed in a web of lies and treachery in a place where appearances often prove to be as unreliable as the shifting sands.

Amidst the fear, greed and turbulence of the dusty, burnished city, the British Mikitary police, led by Major Albert Cutler, run a race against time to trap Rommel’s agent before the war in North Africa is lost. But even Major Cutler is not what he seems. A desperate man, risking his own survival because of a passion for a girl he hardly knows, he is engaged in his own dangerous game of make-believe.