Horror strikes in the sacred place of embalming when an unexpected corpse is discovered in the embalming salts. A much-hated scribe, Hormin, has been murdered and hidden in the place of Anubis, and suspicion forms that the murder heralds a threat to the boy-Pharoah Tutankhamun himself.

It falls to Lord Meren, the Pharoah’s chief investigator, to get to the truth of the matter. Meren, with the aid of his adopted son, find strands of the investigation leading into all aspects of ancient Egyptian society – nobles, slaves and courtesans – and it is clear this is all part of a larger scheme. But can Meren keep his Pharoah safe while finding the murderer, or will someone take advantage of the chaos?

The second of a trio of historical mystery reviews and this was recommended to me an age ago by, I think, Sergio of the Tipping My Fedora podcast. He’s the person who introduced me to Paul Doherty, after all, so you’d think I’d trust him. Well, I did, buying this and the second book in the series… well, years ago. But I did finally get round to reading it…

And we come to a very good question – given that this story involves the sleuths wandering around society tying up dead ends before unmasking the murderer, just like Death In The Dark Lane, why did I enjoy this a lot more than the previous book?

Well, the various aspects of Egyptian life are notably different – it’s not just the next customer of a murderer courtesan – and I felt I was learning various bits and pieces about life in the shadow of the pyramids.

There’s also the fact that the characters undergo development, notably Meren’s adopted son as he faces his actual father for the first time in years, which made the characters a little more real.

At the end of the day, it suffers from the fact that the murderer is hardly a surprise, but unlike John Ralwings, I do want to make a return visit to see where the story takes Meren and company. Unfortunately, the series isn’t cheap. Luckily, I do have the next book on my shelves… somewhere…