This was a weird, rambling book. The main premise is a young detective brought in to investigate the disappearance of the queen. The twist is that its set in ancient Egypt and the queen is Nefertiti. There were one or two times where our hero does use some "new methods" to find clues or solve ancillary murders and if the author had stuck to that it might have been more interesting. But somewhere in the middle of the book it drifted away from a crime story and began to explore palace politics and power struggles. There was also just a strange disconnect between the setting and the dialogue. Somehow the dialogue seemed too modern for the setting. I can't really explain it but it bothered me (and I read a lot of historical fiction so I know it can somehow be done better). Finally - the deaths were overly gruesome. The book lost a star just for that. It's been long enough now that I don't remember why I picked this one up but I sort of regret it. The plot was a bit confusing to try and follow (after all, who's the book supposed to be about?) and countless things kept throwing me out of the story. I don't claim to be an expert on ancient Egypt but know enough about it to be bothered by how much was either historically inaccurate or stretching plausibility a bit too much. Granted it's a fictional story but from the beginning Rahotep was completely unbelievable to me which made the book extremely frustrating. I felt like I was reading a bad attempt at a Sherlock Holmes type character most of the time and really just wanted to whack Rahotep upside the head.
Excellent mystery book. Good book for Egypt lovers.
—EmKaay
detective in ancient egypt.
—Courtney
To slow for my taste.
—MzViC
Loved it!
—Dani
