The eye of Ra - Michael Asher

A brilliant atmospheric thriller, set in Cairo and the surrounding tombs and deserts, involving the threat of the past entwined with present deaths and future machinations. Omar Ross, a maverick archaeologist, is disturbed by the death at the foot of the pyramids of Giza of his old colleague, a famous Egyptologist, Richard Cranwell. Cranwell had become obsessed by his search for the legendary lost city of Zerzura. Ross's suspicions become further aroused by documents left referring to other deaths, of Carnarvon, of Wingate, of Carter, all linked by the inscription for the god Thoth. It seems as if Cranwell had been on the verge of a great discovery; but every contact, every informant, disappears. Cranwell's body itself is lost and Ross, threatened, beleagured and friendless, turns to his mother's family, of the Bedouin tribe. This is a first novel with a difference. Written with great confidence, it is rich with Egyptian mythology and history, its new discoveries are plausible and convincing, the secret organizations and believers complex and frightening, and the cast of characters lively and varied.