Product Description

Nefertiti is the most powerful, charismatic and beautiful Queen of the ancient world. With her husband, Akhenaten, she rules over an Empire at the peak of its glory and domination. Together, they have built a magnificent new city in the desert on the banks of the Nile. They are about to host kings, dignitaries and leaders from around the Empire for a vast festival to celebrate their triumph. But suddenly, Nefertiti vanishes. Rahotep is the youngest chief detective of the Thebes division; a 'Seeker of Mysteries' who knows about shadows and darkness, and who can see patterns where others cannot. His unusual talents earn him a summons to the royal court. Rahotep is given ten days to find the Queen and return her in time for the festival. Success will bring glory - but if he fails, he and his young family will die ...Closely based on historical research, "Nefertiti" tells the hidden story of the crimes, mysteries and secrets of the dark game of power played out against the vast panorama of a society in revolution.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69660 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
An ancient detective must find a missing queen or die.Ceremonious narrator Rai Rahotep, chief detective of the Thebes Medjay division (the mercenary group that guards the Egyptian royalty), is summoned under a cloud of secrecy to the palace of King Akhenaten. Before he even meets the king, Rahotep is assigned three palace colleagues, the imperious and power-hungry Mahu and two earnest Medjay officers, Khety and Tjenry. The Perfect One, aka Queen Nefertiti, has vanished without a trace a week before the capital's inauguration festival, a grand celebration that includes the unveiling of many glorious projects. Gossip is already beginning to leak out of the closed circle of palace society. Because the queen's absence could undermine both the fete and the empire, Rahotep is commanded to find her or be killed, along with his family. The duplicitous Mahu becomes a constant thorn in his side. The search seems over almost before it's begun when a body, dressed in Nefertiti's clothes and fitting her description, is found by the river with its face eaten away. The fact that it is not the queen is a relief, but also evidence of a devilish plot. Worse, Tjenry is found soon after efficiently murdered and drained of blood.This debut novel by award-winning poet Drake (The Man in the White Suit, 2000) begins a proposed Rahotep trilogy with clean, elegant prose and a pervasive aura of suspense. (Kirkus Reviews)

From the Publisher
A brilliantly compelling and stunningly evocative literary thriller set in Ancient Egypt

From the Inside Flap
‘Power is like fire. It consumes everything. And when it is gone, all that’s left is ash.’

She is called 'The Perfect One'; the most famous and beautiful woman in the ancient world. She rules with her husband Akhenaten over the most powerful, sophisticated and affluent society the world has ever seen and across an empire that stretches from Africa through the Middle East.

But behind these glorious scenes an epic power struggle is taking place; Nefertiti and Akhenaten inaugurate an enlightened new religion, and build a magnificent and mysterious new capital, Akhetaten, in which to worship the Sun God, the Aten. The delicate balance of power in Egypt is thrown into confusion; the priesthood is stripped of its traditional authority and wealth, the army is enraged by the growing turbulence in the empire, and the people resent the loss of the ancient gods. Old alliances are brought into doubt, and generations of inherited power and wealth are suddenly at stake.

And then, just days before the crucial festival to celebrate the new capital, Nefertiti suddenly vanishes. Rai Rahotep, the youngest chief
detective in the Thebes division, with a rising reputation for his original
methods, is secretly assigned by Akhenaten himself to investigate. He has ten days to find the Queen and return her in time for the celebrations. Success will bring glory – but if he fails, he and his family will die …

Customer Reviews

Very well written suspense novel
I must admit that I chose this book as a birthday gift rather by chance. Yet was not disappointed. For everyone who is interested in Ancient Egypt - from Cleopatra's nose to the Book of the Dead - this is a must read.
If you like me have wondered what daily life must have been like in Ancient Egypt, then buy this book. The author has taken great pains to elaborate many aspects of Ancient Egyptian life, showing us not only how the pharoahs lived, but also middle class workers, soldiers and the poor.
Using the real story of Nefertiti's mysterious disappearance, he creates a modern-day detective story set against an intriguing backdrop, which can hold one spellbound for hours at an end.

Detective story set in Ancient Egypt



Hopefully the author will continue the career of the Medjay detective Rahotep. With the fall of Akhenaten, the affairs of Egypt are going to get worse and worse, in the next few years. The plot of the story was rather unbelievable, but most detective stories are--- they are usually more about the people in them and what they go through to solve the mystery than a truly believable plot anyway. Rahotep does solve it, though the ending sort of surprised me, not to give it away, but I didn't expect what he found when he got home, not in that time and place and not with everyone he had angered...

Anyway. Its a fascinating period of time and the Medjay were real people, originally a Nubian tribe who for centuries were first warriors for phaoraoh and then eventually the hereditary police force. The author doesn't clarify that, as Lauren Haney does in her excellent series about the fictional Lt Bak (also a mystery/police series)who leads a group of Medjay at the edge of the empire in the days of Queen Hatshepsut. And to go way back, the first pact between Egyptians and Medjay can be read about in Pauline Gedge's wonderful trilogy: "Lord of the Two Lands" where the Medjay tribesmen help the descendents of last Pharaohs fight to free Egypt from the Hyksos conquerors, centuries before the events in this book.

A much superior book if you are fascinated as I am with Nefertiti is the non-fiction book by Nicholas Reeves: "Akhenaten, Egypt's False Prophet" which is highly readable, loaded with excellent photographs from the carvings and images of the era, and tells the whole true history of the Amarna era as it is now known to be.

'Nefertiti'--a royal whodunit!
It's an incredibly confusing, frustrating, and frightening time in Ancient Egypt. The "heretic" Akhenaten is on the throne as pharoah and he is more than determined to bring Egypt from poly- to mono-theism. Such an enormous transition does not go easily, as the previous powers of the priesthood, coupled with opposition of some of the military, economic, and political leaders, are determined that he must stop, at all costs.

Nick Drake, in his first Egyptian novel of the period, brings us directly into this deadly intrigue with "Nefertiti," a police procedural of the age. Drake joins a number of other good ancient Egyptologist works of histo-fiction and certainly this one is among the best.

Well-written, "Nefertiti" introduces us to Rahotep, a young and upcoming Medjay "investigator of mysteries" from Thebes, who's been called to the newly constructed city of Akhetaten, the capital of the new faith, which is one the eve of celebrating its grand opening. Everyone in the known world will be there. It is to be the celebration of the millenium.

Everyone is to be there--except, it seems, Akhenaten's queen, The Perfect One Nefertiti. She's disappeared. Rahotep faces a formidable task:
find her, he's told by the pharoah himself, in ten days' time or else. The else means the death of the policeman and his beloved family.

Every step of the way, however, is marked by obstacles, many deadly, as bodies seem to pile up like Act V of "Hamlet." Reduced, it seems, to only one loyal assistant Khety, Rahotep finds search filled with complicated plots, causes, reasons, and excuses. He must proceed, facing fatal objections from the court, the police with whom he's to work, the military, and the royal family itself.

This period of Egyptian history is perhaps the most famous era and Drake seems to capture the spirit of it. Not as dark as Mailer's "Ancient Evenings," "Nefertiti" nevertheless manages to couple the police procedural genre with the historical period's nuances and drama and comes through in an exciting read, so much so that, thank goodness, Drake is publishing a second Rahotep episode in 2008 called "Tutankhamen." Clearly, Rahotep succeeds in this first try, but not without careful and considerate planning and action. If "Nefertiti" is any indication, the next installment should be well worth the wait.