The Lost Army of Cambyses - Hardcover

Paul Sussman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593048768 ISBN 13: 9780593048764

Publisher: Bantam Press, 2002

Synopsis

In 523 BC the Persian Emperor Cambyses dispatched an army across Egypt's Western Desert to destroy the oracle of Amun at Siwa. Somewhere en route through the burning wastes, the army was overwhelmed by a sandstorm and destroyed. Fifty thousand men were buried beneath the desert sands. Two and a half thousand years later an antiques dealer is murdered in Cairo, a mutilated corpse is found floating in the Nile at Luxor, and a British archaeologist dies in mysterious circumstances at Saqqara. At first the incidents appear unconnected. Egyptian detective Yusuf Khalifa is suspicious, however, and so is Tara Mullray, the archaeologist's daughter. As each seeks to uncover the truth, they find themselves thrown together in a deadly battle for survival, one that forces them to confront not only present day adversaries, but also ghosts from their own past. From a mysterious fragment of ancient text to a lost tomb in the Theban Hills, from the shimmering waters of the Nile to the dusty back streets of Cairo, Khalifa and Mullray are drawn ever deeper into a labyrinth of intrigue, fanaticism, politics and violence, one that eventually leads them into the forbidding wastes of the western desert and the solution to one of the abiding mysteries of the ancient world.

About this title

About the Author

Born in 1966, Paul Sussman read history at Cambridge and was a boxing blue. He subsequently travelled the world, working variously as a gravedigger, builder, detergent salesman and stand-up comedian. Now a journalist, he was one of the founders of The Big Issue and has written for the Daily Telegraph, Express, Standard et al as well as broadcast on Radio 4. His greatest passion is archaeology. He has worked on numerous digs and has spent two months each year for the past few years in Egypt's Valley of the Kings as the official diarist for the Amarna Royal Tombs Project. Paul Sussman lives in London.

From Publishers Weekly

Sussman's accomplished first thriller mixes an ancient legend of an invading Persian army swallowed up by a sandstorm in the Egyptian desert with the explosive politics of modern Egypt. London zoologist Tara Mullray comes to the pyramids at Saqqara to visit her father, a prominent archeologist. She finds him slumped dead in his apartment, apparently of natural causes. He has left his daughter an ancient, much-coveted wall fragment that he discovered, covered with hieroglyphics that may reveal the long-concealed site where the lost Persian army perished. The site would be not only an archeological gold mine but an incredibly valuable store of ancient treasure. Many shady characters are after the wall fragment, and Tara is caught up in a swirl of intrigue involving a malevolent Islamic fundamentalist leader, Sayf-al-Tha'r, who wants an Egypt freed of foreigners, and his associate, Dr. Dravic, a greedy, unscrupulous German professor. Helping her navigate the shadowy local politics is Daniel Lecage, an archeologist and former lover who left her for his other love, Egypt. She's also aided by Yusuf Khalifa, a thoughtful police inspector whose beloved older brother joined Sayf-al-Tha'r's radicals and was eventually killed by them. Sussman, who works on excavations in Egypt, has created a textured, well-researched and expertly paced debut. As the murders and thrills accumulate, the story veers toward melodrama, but the truly inventive plot twists come along at such a fast clip that readers won't mind.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593048768
• ISBN 13: 9780593048764
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 309