Heart of the Nile
A Barker & Llewelyn Novel
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Shamus Award for Best Novel!
London, 1893 - deadly doings are afoot in the British Museum and private enquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn must unravel a mystery involving a mummy, a giant ruby and a murder, in Will Thomas's Heart of the Nile.
Cyrus Barker, along with his former assistant and now partner Thomas Llewelyn, is the premier enquiry agent in all of 19th century London, and beyond. They've thwarted the designs of villains and crooks off all sorts, helped Scotland Yard crack their most challenging cases, and worked for the Her Majesty's Government at the very highest levels. But nothing has been quite as challenging and dangerous as the latest case that comes to find them.
In 1893, a volunteer at the British Museum makes a startling discovery. When examining a mummy in the museum's collection, he discovers there is a giant ruby in the shape of a heart buried in the chest of the mummy. Even more startling, the mummy might well be Cleopatra. The following morning, the volunteer is found floating in the Thames and the ruby has gone missing. Hired by the victim’s wife to learn the truth behind his death, Barker and Llewelyn find themselves in the crosshairs - now they must avoid a violent street gang, a ruthless collector, and the British Museum itself in order to find the killer and safeguard the gem.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Thomas's superlative 14th mystery featuring Victorian inquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn (after 2022's Fierce Poison), grammar school teacher Phillip Addison has volunteered to work at night to help the British Museum catalog its enormous collection of Egyptian mummies. In the process, Addison hopes to further his own research and devise a formula to determine a mummy's original weight. But when he looks at a female mummy that has languished for years unexamined, he discovers it's surprisingly heavy—and that its chest contains a giant heart-shaped ruby. Addison hurries to inform his superior, Clive Hennings, of the treasure, but disappears after doing so. Addison's wife asks Barker and Llewelyn to find him, a task complicated when Hennings shares that the mummy containing the jewel may be Cleopatra herself. The missing person case becomes a homicide inquiry when someone linked to the mummy is found floating in the Thames, the victim of a fatal stabbing. The author does a terrific job playing a variation on the classic brilliant sleuth and capable sidekick duo. Thomas is on a roll.
