Scorpion Scheme

What if a Cairo man dying before your eyes might hold the key to millions of dollars in buried treasure?



Pharaohs’ tombs. Ancient myths. Modern-day murder.



Dr. Hope Sze doesn’t need a trip to Egypt.

She can’t afford the flight to Cairo, or the cruise down the Nile, but her fiancé, Dr. John Tucker, yearns to patrol the Pyramids.

So when a company offers them both a free stay in Cairo in exchange for working in an emergency department, Tucker lobbies for a pre-honeymoon in the windswept temple of Hatshepsut and the Valley of Kings and Queens, confronting the curse on King Tutankhamun’s tomb, or flying off to scuba dive in the Red Sea.

Instead, within 90 minutes of arrival, Dr. Hope Sze drops to her knees outside the Grand Egyptian Museum, desperate to save a now-comatose 87-year-old man with a nail through his skull. The man had raved about Kruger and treasure.

Tucker fixates on their one chance at the legendary Kruger Millions, a fortune in gold that many believe to be secretly stowed somewhere in South Africa.

Since Tucker and Hope’s combined student debt load totals almost half a million dollars, Tucker can’t pass up the possibility of buried gold.

So Hope and Tucker launch into their first mystery based in a birthplace of human civilization.

Where wealth and power clash with political revolution.

Where the evil god Set battled righteous Horus and Isis in an 80-year war.

Where Antony fell in love with Cleopatra.

Where Hope and Tucker must outwit, or fall prey, to a ruthless criminal mastermind.



"Bursting with murder, medicine, and Egyptian mythology." Dr. Mamta Gautam, author of Irondoc



“ER meets Homeland in a frenetic Egyptian adventure. Melissa Yi’s Dr. Hope Sze turns her medical crimefighting into an international incident. Terrorism, tombs, sarcasm, and sex.” Dr. Frank Warsh, author of Hippocrates: the Art and the Oath



“Scorpion Scheme is top-notch historical crime fiction with a fabulous kick-ass female protagonist. The kind of book that you just can’t put down. Scorpion Scheme is Robin Cook meets D.J. McIntosh’s fabulous Mesopotamian trilogy but it delivers a stingingly good tale all on its own steam.”

Lisa de Nikolits, author of The Rage Room



"Flat out incredible. Set against the sands of Egypt, Dr. Hope Sze and her fiance Dr. John Tucker go to Egypt and hope to see the sights, but they are drawn into a fight for their lives and a mysterious treasure. I loved this book so much! I was drawn into Hope's adventure and taken on a thrill ride that came to an explosive conclusion. This is a fantastic book and really made me take a deeper look into the idea of justice, what is right and what is wrong. [On] my Best Books of 2020 list!" Jamieson Wolf, author of Little Yellow Magnet



"Loved it. Loved every single word. Impossible to put down. Melissa Yi continues to thrill and amaze across the world.” Jen Dupuis, RN