When the body of a night watchman is found sprawled in the shadow of a rare Nineteenth-Dynasty mummy case, panic ensues. For no one doubts that the guard's untimely demise is the work of an ancient Egyptian curse. No one, that is, except that tart-tongued Victorian Egyptologist, Amelia Peabody, whose remarkable talent for criminal investigation has frustrated villains from London to Cairo.

Now fresh from her daring exploits in exotic Egypt, Amelia, her sexy archaeologist husband, Emerson, and their catastrophically precocious son, Ramses, have returned to their native England just in time to get wrapped up in the intrigue. It's a mystery worthy of Amelia's superior sleuthing, but can she elude the vile clutches of the real perpetrator long enough to uncover his identity . . . or is she destined to wind up as his next victim?