Year of the Hyenas

True to the advice of his editor quoted in the acknowledgements ("Mystery, Brad, not history"), Geagley does a marvelous job of weaving historical detail into "Year of the Hyenas," transporting the reader into ancient Egypt without bogging down the story with irrelevant details. His main protagonist, Semerket, has depth and challenges that make his progression as a character interesting to follow. Most of the other characters were also interesting, both internally and in how they related to Semerket. A few fell short--the boy Rami, for example, had much more potential than was realized. The narrator began trying to convince us that Hunro was important to Semerket a little too late to ring true.

My interest in Semerket's personal life show more outweighed my interest in the mystery he was solving, so the story began to fall flat for me about 3/4 of the way through, when the focus shifted to the conspiracy. The plot is ostensibly based in historical fact, but at this point Geagley seemed to be stretching to incorporate the true story into the fiction. Also, my interest in deciphering which secondary characters are culpable and which have good intentions requires a certain balance of "good guys" to "bad guys" that tipped too far, too fast. I kept reading, mostly to find out what would happen between Semerket and his ex-wife, and his brother. Then again, I'm not much of a mystery reader--maybe someone who thrives on plot twists and turns would breathe a sigh of relief at finally getting to the good part. show less

It was an historical mystery set in ancient Egypt during the reign of Ramses III. It was set during that time period because there was a real murder mystery at the time: the queen, her son (one of many royal offspring) and the ladies in the harem, plotted and killed Ramses III. They have the actual records of it.

The book actually starts out with the murder of an old, blind, minor priestess in the village of the tomb-makers on the western side of the Nile. It moves into tomb robbing, and that leads to the plot against Pharaoh.

The writing was good, the characters were interesting, and the story was engaging - at times it had riveting moments, but they came and went. The setting was well done and had the feel of being in the place and show more time. I will eventually order the second book in the series Day of the False King. It has the same main character investigator, but is set in Babylon. show less

This is a historical mystery set in Egypt at the time of Ramses III. Features a pretty classic gumshoe character, the ladies like him and he's a troubled yet standup guy, determined to get to the bottom of the murder of a minor priestess though powerful forces around him don't seem to want that.Some problematic bits about strong women, and the detective's apparent alcoholism. Not sure if I'm on board with the author's treatment of both. But the interesting Egyptian historical aspects and the fast moving storyline mean I'll probably check out the second in the series.

I loved this book. I love historical mysteries because I want to feel taken out of my everyday life, and this did the trick. Interesting characters and well-plotted!

Not going to finish this, it's terrible and I rarely do that with a book. His female characters are all stereotypes, bitch, whore or priestess and his male characters seem to all be unlikable. Big deal he got the Egyptian setting correctly down.

This was actually really good!