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Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Poisoner of Ptah

Doherty, P.C. The Poisoner of Ptah.


6 words: Has the Rekhet returned? Prisoner escaped.

Set during the reign of Hatshepsut (or Hatusu, as Doherty uses the shortened version of her name), the female pharaoh who ruled Egypt for 22 years, this mystery requires Judge Amerotke to discover who poisoned 3 scribes during an important ceremony to confirm a peace treaty between the Egyptians and the Libyans. Is it the Rekhet, the poisoner of Ptah, who poisoned so many people several years earlier?

And there are other issues, political and national, at stake. Will the peace treaty be sidetracked? What do the gangs of the Egyptian underworld have to with events? What about the deaths of a wealthy merchant and his wife?

I like Doherty's Egyptian mystery series. They read quickly and have a way of re-creating ancient Egypt --from the palace, to the temple, to the streets --that I enjoy.

Fiction. Historical Mystery. 2007. 378 pages.

4 comments:

  1. This sounds good. I've only read the Amelia Peabody series that is set in Egypt, but that has a totally different slant. Have you read Michelle Moran's book Nefertiti?

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  2. danielle - I enjoy his mysteries about Egypt, and yes, they are very different from the Amelia Peabody series. I haven't read Nefertiti yet; what did you think about it?

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  3. That sounds really interesting. I haven't really read much of anything but non-fiction about Egypt.

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  4. bookfool - I enjoy his mysteries for the mystery itself and for the setting.

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