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Monday 7 September 2015

Paul Sussman - the Lost Army of Cambyses

review by showhost
I am glad to have finished this book so I can read a more seriously believable one. If you like reading indiana Jones then you will love this book.  I enjoyed watching the film's of Indiana Jones, adventure, humorous quips and escapism but reading is different. I thought it would have more intrigue and depth.
Tara has gone from her home in london to meet her estranged dad in Egypt. Her dad is a renown archaeologist always looking for the lost treasures and tombs a job which came first in his life.  When she arrives in Egypt her dad isn't there to meet her, she finally goes looking for him on his present dig site.  He is dead cause of which was a heart attack. But one noticeable thing was the strong smell of cigar smoke, a habit her father detested and would have no one smoke in his presence. On a nearby dune they are being watched by a very tall powerful man in a suit.  When Tara goes back to her hotel she sees what looks to be the same man getting out of a taxi, looking up at her, smoking a cigar.
A chance meeting with her ex-lover, also an archaeologist, random murders around, Egypt involving antiquities, a piece of artefact never before seen and rumour of a found tomb and a lost army from 523BC.  Put this in the mix with a feared fundamentalist, a little of the history leading to the lost army, the searing desert and inspector yusuf khalifa of the luxor police and you have your story. Inspector khalifa is one of the main characters, we get to know his family, as he follows the random murders but decides there is some link to them all and eventually links to Tara.
It is a thriller but of a swashbuckling nature, tongue in cheek in parts, predictable in others.  And ok, you don’t have the lead character the same as Indi, he is a mild mannered inspector, but the rest follows the same theme.  I admit to skipping paragraphs nearing the end and still not losing the plot.  So to sum up an easy, entertaining, boys own adventure type read, with some interesting facets about Egypt thrown in.

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