Description:

Recently widowed Renisenb returns with her young daughter to her father’s family. The family members become aggravated when the patriarch, Imhotep, brings home a young concubine named Nofret, who has him in her grip. It is not long before Nofret turns up dead at the bottom of a cliff. She easily could have fallen by accident, but slowly Renisenb and the family's scribe, Hori, begin to believe Nofret’s death was planned.

Review

"Startlingly new... my already insensate admiration for her leaps even higher." Observer "More realistic than many a thriller-writer's idea of London." Evening Standard "A fascinating problem... baffling the most perspicacious reader." Scotsman "A decided novelty - startling in all directions." Weekly Book Review "As ingenious and baffling as ever." Daily Sketch

From the Back Cover

It is Egypt in 2000 BC, where death gives meaning to life. At the foot of a cliff lies the broken, twisted body of Nofret, concubine to a ka-priest. Young, beautiful, and venomous, most agree that it was fate—she deserved to die like a snake!

But at her father's house on the banks of the Nile, the priest's daughter Renisenb believes that the woman's death is suspicious. Increasingly, she becomes convinced that the source of evil lurks within their household—and watches helplessly as the family's passions explode in murder. . . .