An Egyptologist is obsessed with finding the tomb of an apocryphal king and the result is a witty, inventive and brilliantly constructed novel. As you read you wonder if the narrator is a reliable source, but if not him....who?

In 1922 while Howard Carter is uncovering King Tut’s tomb, Ralph Trilipush, also an Egyptologist, is obsessed with finding the tomb of Atum-hadu, supposed Egyptian king and erotic poet. Trilipush is engaged to marry Margaret Finneran, a Boston socialite, whose father is bank rolling the expedition. Australian detective, Harold Ferrell, sticks his nose into their business while investigating the death of Paul Caldwell, an Australian soldier stationed in Egypt at the same time as Trilipush. He finds inconsistencies in Trilipush’s background and starts to believe he killed Caldwell.

The story is told through journal entries, letters and cables. Most of the narrative comes from Trilipush’s journal from 1922. The other half of the narrative comes from Ferrell’s letters to Margaret’s nephew written in 1955. Both narrators are unreliable. Trilipush’s narrative can not be relied upon because he is so focused and sure of Atum-hadu’s existence that he can’t accept when the expedition starts to fall apart. Ferrell’s letters are also unreliable because he is writing from a rest home and piecing the story together from thirty-three year old notes and his own memories.

The theme of the story is immortality. Egyptian kings thought they would achieve immortality through the Egyptian burial rituals; being buried in tombs with objects that would help them in the afterlife and mummification. Trilipush believes his immortality lies in finding Atum-hadu’s tomb. As Ferrell writes to Macy, he talks about how they can team up to publish Ferrell’s cases as a series of detective stories.

There are no heroes in this novel. All of the characters are flawed; Margaret is a drug addict and her father hopes Trilipush’s find will pay off his underworld debts. Ferrell falls for Margaret and tries to sabotage her engagement to Trilipush.

Some of Trilipush’s journal entries are tedious. I found myself looking ahead to see when Margaret or Ferrell would add one of their letters to the narrative. Near the end though, Trilipush’s entries became so interesting I couldn’t put the book down. I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in the psychology of obsession. ( )

Loved it, great imposter who actually believes his own story. There might be a tragic element there, it definitely makes for a good read. I love imposters, esp. the great ones. ( )

The book is written in the form of documents: letters, journal entries, maps, and figures. The epistolary novel has a rapid pace, good character development, humor, and action. The main theme is passion of the mind, a personality trait that can take a person out of the most devastating developmental environment and into a world of dreams. Passion, however, can change to delusion that in archeology may go undetected for a millennium. Arthur Phillips’ great story is very different from his more sophisticated psycho-historical novel, Prague (see my review on Amazon). Recently, I bought the author’s novel, Angelica and look forward to reading it on my Kindle 1. ( )

The author must have been paid by the word as he repeats him self constantly. I am befuddled by the reviewers that state that they were surprised by the ending as I had figured it out less than 1/2 way through and kept waiting to be fooled. It is a good read but could have been much shorter. I was very disappointed that they had the Ahrib that worked with the explorer (and was convicted of his murder) and they never had him take them to the dig sight where apparently the bodies were. A very big disappointment.