ALL HAIL THE JUBILANT RETURN OF THE REDOUBTABLE AMELIA PEABODY! The prospects for the archaeological season in Egypt seem fairly dull to Ameila Peabody. Her adored husband, Professor Radcliff Emerson, has been ignominiously demoted to examining only the most boring tombs in the Valley of the Kings, mere leftovers really, but they are determined to make the most of a bad situation. This year, however, the legendary land of the pharaohs will yield more than priceless artifacts, for the desert guards even deeper mysteries that are wrapped in greed and sealed in murder. The purchase of a mint condition papyrus of the famed Book of the Dead, a collection of magical spells and prayer designed to ward off the perils of the underworld, soon has Amelia calling on all of her remarkable skills of detection and deduction to untangle a web woven of criminals and cults, stolen treasures, and fallen women-all the while under the unblinking eye of Sethos, the charismatic yet elusive Master Criminal.

ELIZABETH PETERS earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago's famed Oriental Institute. An Agatha Award-winning author, Ms. Peters was named Grandmaster in the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986. In 1990 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Hood College. A frequent lecture at museums and libraries, she lives in an historic farmhouse in Frederick, Maryland.