Review: Secrets of the Nile

Secrets of the Nile by Tasha Alexander
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Read all of this series so have come to enjoy the adventures of Colin Hargreaves and his lovely wife, Lady Emily. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of Colin in this book, though his mother and daughter were more finely tuned as characters this time. Usually, I like throw backs to prior time in same location but these two-three page chapters to the time of Ramses II were distracting and the theme not at all coherent with the main story. As to the main story, it was horribly convoluted and the solution to the mysterious death by cyanide of the victim was anticlimatic and disappointing.

There were as ever, positives to the tale--the description of Egypt in 1904 with all the British Egyptologists attempting to find artifacts of the ancient civilization was beautiiful. The history of the tombs of both Pharoahs and commoners was interesting as well as the description of the objects and their creation in the funerary rite were illuminating. Though the same information could be gleaned from academic essays, the setting in a novel made it more interesting. It is one of the strengths of the Lady Emily series and why I keep reading it. But, let's get Colin more involved next time, please--I missed him.

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