The Cairo brief - Fiona Veitch Smith

Intrepid reporter sleuth Poppy Denby is invited to attend the auction of the Death Mask of Nefertiti. The auction is to be held on the country estate of Sir James Maddox, a famous explorer and Egyptologist. Representatives of the world's leading museums will be bidding on the mask which was found, in Egypt, under murderous circumstances. Poppy and her colleagues from The Daily Globe, who are trying to stay one step ahead of their rivals from The London Courier, dismiss rumours of an ancient curse. But when one of the auction party is murdered, and someone starts stalking Poppy, the race is on to find the killer before 'the curse' can strike again.

Fiona Veitch Smith is the author of the Poppy Denby Investigates novels, Golden Age-style murder mysteries set in the 1920s, about a reporter sleuth who works for a London tabloid. The first book in the series, The Jazz Files, was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, while subsequent books have been shortlisted for the Foreword Review Mystery Novel of the Year and the People's Book Prize. She is formerly a journalist, having worked on the arts and crime beats of a Cape Town newspaper, and lectured in journalism in the UK for over a decade. She is currently the Deputy Editor of the CWA's Red Herrings Magazine.

"Poppy Denby is on top form solving the mystery surrounding the ancient Egyptian mask of Queen Nefertiti. Highly recommended!" Dolores Gordon-Smith, author of the Jack Haldean murder mysteries

"Intrepid Poppy Denby visits a country estate not unlike Downton Abbey in this caper. It's great fun following Fiona's crew of early 20th-century reporters as they seek scoops and solve murders on the side." Deb Richardson-Moore, author of The Cantaloupe Thief, The Cover Story and Death of a Jester

"Thoroughly enjoyable mystery. Murders, sinister figures, a cursed Egyptian mask - and a seance! All the ingredients for another superlative Poppy Denby investigation." A. J. Wright, award-winning author of the Lancashire Detective series

"Fiona Veitch Smith, where have you been all my life? Poppy Denby is delightful, the plot rocks, and the 1920s era is perfectly evoked. British mystery fans, you want to read this. You really, really do." Cassandra Chan, author of the Bethancourt and Gibbons mysteries