Product Description

Since 1922, when Howard Carter discovered Tut's 3,000-year-old tomb, most Egyptologists have presumed that the young king died of disease, or perhaps an accident, such as a chariot fall. But what if his fate was actually much more sinister? Now, in "The Murder of King Tut", James Patterson and Martin Dugard chronicle their epic quest to find out what happened to the boy-king. The result is a true crime tale of intrigue, betrayal, and usurpation that presents a compelling case that King Tut's death was anything but natural.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7596 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-13
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

About the Author
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past decade: the Women's Murder Club, the Alex Cross novels and Maximum Ride, and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers. He lives in Florida with his wife and son. James is passionate about encouraging both adults and children alike to read. This has led to him forming a partnership with the National Literacy Trust, an independent, UK-based charity that changes lives through literacy. MARTIN DUGARD is an author of numerous works of history and adventure. He lives in California.

Customer Reviews

The Murder of King Tut, overall rating
I read this book in 2 days, I just couldnt put it down. I was initially a bit unsure as it was different to the usual James Patterson.
This book is a brilliant read, the three stories, of Tut, Howard Carter and how James Patterson went about the research really fit well together and makes this book and excellent read. Without spoiling it too much I learnt quite a bit and thoroughly enjoyed every page

Incredibly Poor
As a big fan of `faction' books I brought The Murder of King Tut before a recent holiday to Egypt. The premise of the book sounded excellent, with the three stories of King Tut's life, the discovery of his tomb by Howard Carter and James Patterson's modern research into the subject blended together to give a fresh look at this subject. However, the book turned out to be one of the poorest I have ever read.

Tutankhamun's Life

About half of the book is given over to the young King's life and is set during this period. This provided a wonderful opportunity to introduce the reader to ancient Egypt and to set the historical context for the book. However, it fails to present even a slightly convincing portrait of this period. There was no depth or description at all to the writing style and if you had removed the characters names you would have had no idea that this was supposed to be a novel that was set in 1200BC. The sycophantic view of Tutenkhamun is particularly hard to believe. James Patterson gives the impression that he has never visited Egypt and this certainly comes through in the book.

Howard Carter's Life

This was the only redeeming feature of the book and gave some interesting information. That said, information on Carter is easy to come by and it is just a case of re-writing it slightly for the purpose of the book.

James Patterson's Investigation

An opportunity to explain all the meticulous research he claims to have undertaken and how he arrived at the conclusions he did. Instead he basically spends the time telling you how many other books he has written and what a great author he is. Did you know he wrote the Alex Cross novels, because he mentions it a few times here!

Plot - warning potential spoiler

When writing books like this it is accepted that the author has to make certain assumptions. However, James Patterson seems to ignore anything that doesn't fit with his, very flimsy, theory. As just one example, he ignores the generally accepted fact that Vizier Ay was actually Nefertiti's father.

Worse, he simply ignores all the modern independent scientific research that concluded that there was no foul play involved. His rationale for this? A hunch. That is it, he has a hunch like his character Alex Cross, as he is keen to point out. Most bizarrely of all, having concluded that Tutenhkamun was murdered by a blow to the head, James Patterson goes on to describe how he was strangled, of which there is no evidence nor could any ever be found, before implicating everyone that ever knew him.

A truly underwhelming experience from start to finish, I could not recommend this book to anyone I am afraid.

Not as expected
King Tut was I regret very disappointing,by far the poorest work I have had from James Patterson.
Whilst the start was good, the book descended into basic chapter and verse, and did not create any feeling of excitement.I hope Patterson is not becoming too complacent.