Review written by Ro Bennett & read live on the bookshow august 2015
I
listened to this audio book on the free library service, One Click Digital
Audio. The narrator is excellent.
I
have enjoyed both the Paul Sussman books I have read or listened to. The Lost
Army of Cambyses is the first in the series, but I started with The Labyrinth of
Osiris. He wrote another four books before he died in 2012 aged 46 of a ruptured
aneurism, leaving a wife and two sons. His
novels have been translated into 33 languages and are set mainly in Egypt where
he worked for many years as a field archaeologist in the Valley of the
Kings.
Among
other finds, he unearthed the only items of pharaonic jewellery to have been
excavated in the Valley since the discovery of Tutankhamun.
In
his ‘About the Author” biography page he wrote: For as long as I can remember,
the two great loves of my life have been writing and archaeology (three if you
include travelling in out of the way places, especially deserts). For many years
I worked as a field archaeologist in Egypt, notably in Luxor and the Valley of
the Kings, and all my novels to a greater or lesser extent draw on my
experiences excavating and living in Egypt and the Middle East. My main
protagonist, Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police, is a composite of a
number of people I know, and while his colourful adventures are products purely
of my imagination, the world he inhabits is very much a real one. Through
Khalifa I try to explore issues such as terrorism, contemporary Middle East
politics, religion and government corruption, all against a backdrop of the
extraordinary history and archaeological heritage of that part of the
world.
This
book was written in 2006 but is still very relevant today. It’s informative as
well as entertaining and would make a great block buster movie.
Paul
Sussman’s love of the region and archaeology come across vividly.
This
is the synopsis:
In
523 BC, the Persian emperor Cambyses dispatched an army across Egypt's western
desert to destroy the oracle of Amun at Siwa. Legend has it that somewhere in
the middle of the Great Sand Sea his army was overwhelmed by a sandstorm and
destroyed. Fifty thousand men were lost.
Two
and a half thousand years later a mutilated corpse is washed up on the banks of
the Nile at Luxor, an antiques dealer is savagely murdered in Cairo, and an
eminent British archaeologist is found dead at the ancient necropolis of
Saqqara.
At
first the incidents appear unconnected. Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor
police is suspicious, however. And so too is the archaeologist's daughter, Tara
Mullray. As each seeks to uncover the truth, they find themselves thrown
together in a desperate race for survival - one that forces them to confront not
only present-day adversaries but also ghosts from their own pasts.
From
a mysterious fragment of ancient hieroglyphic text to rumours of a fabulous lost
tomb in the Theban Hills, from the shimmering waters of the Nile to the dusty
backstreets of Cairo, Khalifa and Mullray are drawn ever deeper into a labyrinth
of violence, intrigue and betrayal. It is a path that will eventually lead them
into the forbidding, barren heart of the western desert, and the answer to one
of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world . . .
This
was an excellent début novel - full of suspense and twists and turns and the
unexpected. It’s been described as “an adrenaline-packed thriller and a
wonderfully evocative archaeological adventure.” It was sometimes a bit gory for
my taste, but I would heartily recommend it.
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