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A journalist is murdered in Jerusalem's Armenian Cathedral and Detective Arieh Ben-Roi is spoilt for leads. But one seems out of place - an apparent link to a decades-old missing persons case in Egypt. Baffled, Ben-Roi turns for help to his old friend and sparring partner, Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police.
Although struggling with personal tragedy and immersed in a case of his own - mysterious well poisonings in the Eastern Desert - Khalifa agrees to do some digging. What he discovers will change both men's lives for ever.
As their investigations intertwine, the detectives are drawn ever deeper into a sinister web of violence, abuse, corporate malpractice and international terrorism. And at its heart lies a three thousand year-old mystery that has already taken two lives, and will soon be claiming more...
Journalist and novelist Paul Sussman read history at Cambridge, where he won a Joseph Larmor Award and was a Boxing Blue. From an early age his abiding passion was archaeology and he worked in the field, in particular in Egypt (where he was part of the first team to excavate new ground in the Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922). He brought this interest and enthusiasm to his novels – The Lost Army of Cambyses, The Last Secret of the Temple, The Hidden Oasis and The Labyrinth of Osiris – which have been translated into over 30 languages and have sold over three million copies. Paul’s journalism appeared across the media, including in the Big Issue, Independent, Guardian, Evening Standard and on CNN.com.
Paul died suddenly in May 2012, aged 45. He is survived by his wife, a television producer, and their two sons. In 2014, the posthumous publication of what was in fact his first novel - The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix - fulfilled a long-held wish.