Review: The Return of the Pharaoh by Nicholas Meyer

Synopsis: In Nicholas Meyer's The Return of the Pharaoh, Sherlock Holmes returns in an adventure that takes him to Egypt in search of a missing nobleman, a previously undiscovered pharaoh's tomb, and a conspiracy that threatens his very life.With his international bestseller, The Seven Per Cent Solution, Nicholas Meyer brought to light a previously unpublished case of Sherlock Holmes that reinvigorated the world's interest in the first consulting detective. Now, many years later, Meyer is given exclusive access to Dr. Watson's unpublished journal, wherein he details a previously unknown case.

In 1910, Dr. John Watson travels to Egypt with his wife Juliet. Her tuberculosis has returned and her doctor recommends a stay at a sanitarium in a dry climate. But while his wife undergoes treatment, Dr. Watson bumps into an old friend--Sherlock Holmes, in disguise and on a case. An English Duke with a penchant for egyptology has disappeared, leading to enquiries from his wife and the Home Office.

Holmes has discovered that the missing duke has indeed vanished from his lavish rooms in Cairo and that he was on the trail of a previous undiscovered and unopened tomb. And that he's only the latest Egyptologist to die or disappear under odd circumstances. With the help of Howard Carter, Holmes and Watson are on the trail of something much bigger, more important, and more sinister than an errant lord.

When Dr Watson travels to Egypt for the sake of his wife's health, he runs into his erstwhile partner in crime - Sherlock Holmes. Watson and Holmes had previously gone their separate ways but now their paths have crossed. Holmes lures Watson back to sleuthing when a missing English peer goes missing - and Watson, ever the man of action, launches himself into the investigation.

Egypt, at the turn of the century, was experiencing political turmoil: the Prime Minister Boutros Ghali had been assassinated in Feb 1910; the British had defeated the Egyptian army in 1882 and had taken control of the country (as well as the recently constructed Suez Canal); there was a nationalist uprising (1879 - 1882).

Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, arrived in Egypt in 1877 as the British Controller-General of Egypt, ostensibly to oversee the gaining of control of Egypt's finances, and eventual incorporation of Egypt into the British Empire. Baring believed that because of Egyptian administrative incompetence, a long occupation was essential to any sort of reform. Moreover, he established a new guiding principle for Egypt known as the Granville Doctrine (named for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Granville). The doctrine enabled Baring and other British officials to fill the government with those Egyptian politicians that would be cooperative with the British and the power to dismiss Egyptian ministers who refused to accept British directives. Under Baring, British officials were positioned in key ministries and a new system, known as the Veiled Protectorate, was introduced. Essentially, the government was a façade or a puppet of the British.

Added to this political drama was the recent burst of archaeological excavations in Egypt. Egyptology's modern history begins with the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte in the late 18th century and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799. English Egyptologist William Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) introduced archaeological techniques of field preservation, recording, and excavation to the field. Many highly educated amateurs also travelled to Egypt, including women, and they left accounts of their travels, which revealed learned familiarity with all of the latest European Egyptology. It would be the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter that ignited public interest to fever pitch.

From the 1850s until the 1930s, Egypt's economy was heavily reliant on long-staple cotton, introduced in the mid-1820s and made possible by changes in irrigation practices. Large scale industrialisation had yet to occur, partly due to the tariff restrictions that Britain imposed on Egypt. The isolated industrial ventures initiated by members of Egypt's landed aristocracy, who otherwise channeled their investment into land acquisition and speculation, were nipped in the bud by foreign competition. The few surviving enterprises were owned by foreigners. These enterprises either enjoyed natural protection, as in the case of sugar and cotton processing, or benefited from the special skills that the foreign owners had acquired.

Thus was the state of Egypt at the time that this particular novel was set.  Meyer sets forth a rousing adventure that keeps readers entertained with more corpses littering the pages than the Valley of the Kings.

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas.

From The Jewish News of North California

Oakland novelist Michael David Lukas fell in love with Cairo during a college semester abroad in 2000. He found the mega-city of 20 million people “humongous, vibrant, amazing, decrepit, friendly, dangerous” — but as a Jew, he was confused about his own relationship to it.

Then he chanced upon the city’s 1,000-year-old Ben Ezra Synagogue, source of the treasure trove of historical Jewish documents known as the Cairo Geniza.

Engaging and vivid, “Watchman” centers on a Muslim family that served as security guards for the Ben Ezra Synagogue for more than 1,000 years. While the synagogue and its famous geniza are real, the generations of watchmen are fictional — “ahistorical in that they never happened,” Lukas says, “but historical in that they could have happened.”

read more here @ The Jewish News of North California

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo

Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled history that binds the two sides of his family. For generations, the men of the al-Raqb family have served as watchmen of the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, built at the site where the infant Moses was taken from the Nile. Joseph learns of his ancestor Ali, a Muslim orphan who nearly a thousand years earlier was entrusted as the first watchman of the synagogue and became enchanted by its legendary—perhaps magical—Ezra Scroll. The story of Joseph’s family is entwined with that of the British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 depart their hallowed Cambridge halls on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue.

New Fiction: The City Of Brass

Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles. 

S.A. Chakraborty's debut novel, The City of Brass, is an epic historical fantasy about con-artist, Nahri, who strikes up a friendship with “a fiery djinn prince who dreams of revolutionizing his father’s corrupt regime. But, in a world where loyalty is a magical bond and grievances last for millennia, she soon learns that working with the enemy – even to make peace – can have deadly consequences.”

read an excerpt here @ Gizmondo Australia or visit S.A Chakraborty's website

Cairo Inside Out

“Cairo Inside Out” is unlike any other book. It is not a travel book, nor a guide, nor a memoir, and neither is it a history book nor a coffee-table book. It attempts to grasp what the Spanish call “el no se que” and the French, “je ne sais quoi” — expressions which have no exact equivalent in English.

From one page to another, we move on to medieval Cairo, which is mostly intact. The contrast between past and present pervades the atmosphere; you see men wearing the same clothes and eating the same food as their ancestors and yet they are talking on a smart phone.

This book takes you to the heart of Cairo. [Trevor] Naylor conveys in words and pictures the moods and light of a city steeped in history, a city that is both eternal and ever changing.

Read full review by Lisa Kaaki at Arab News