The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips

From the bestselling author of Prague comes a witty, inventive, brilliantly constructed
novel about an Egyptologist obsessed with finding the tomb of an apocryphal king.
This darkly comic labyrinth of a story opens on the desert plains of Egypt in 1922,
then winds its way from the slums of Australia to the ballrooms of Boston by way
of Oxford, the battlefields of the First World War, and a royal court in turmoil.

Just as Howard Carter unveils the tomb of Tutankhamun, making the most dazzling find
in the history of archaeology, Oxford-educated Egyptologist Ralph Trilipush is digging
himself into trouble, having staked his professional reputation and his fiance's
fortune on a scrap of hieroglyphic pornography. Meanwhile, a relentless Australian
detective sets off on the case of his career, spanning the globe in search of a murderer.
And another murderer. And possibly another murderer. The confluence of these seemingly
separate stories results in an explosive ending, at once inevitable and utterly unpredictable.

Arthur Phillips leads this expedition to its unforgettable climax with all the wit
and narrative bravado that made Prague one of the most critically acclaimed novels
of 2002. Exploring issues of class, greed, ambition, and the very human hunger for
eternal life, this staggering second novel gives us a glimpse of Phillips's range
and maturity-and is sure to earn him further acclaim as one of the most exciting
authors of his generation.