All hail the jubilant return of the redoubtable Amelia Peabody! The prospects for the 1907 archaeological season in Egypt seem fairly dull to Amelia Peabody. Her adored husband, Professor Radcliff Emerson, has been ignominiously demoted to examining only the most boring tombs in the Valley of the Kings, mere leftovers really, but they are determined to make the most of a bad situation.

This year, however, the legendary land of the pharaohs will yield more than priceless artifacts, for the desert guards even deeper mysteries that are wrapped in greed - and sealed in murder.

he purchase of a mint condition papyrus of the Famed Book of the Dead, a collection of magical spells and prayers designed to ward off the perils of the underworld, soon has Amelia calling on all her remarkable skills of detection and deduction to untangle a web woven of criminals and cults, stolen treasures, and fallen women - all the while under the unblinking eye of Sethos, the charismatic yet elusive Master Criminal.

Once again, Elizabeth Peters demonstrates the brilliance and wit that have ensured her place in the exclusive pantheon of America's greatest mystery writers.