Michael J. Marfleet

I read this book in e-book format so my criticisms may not be relevant to the paper version but it gives all the signs of being self-published by someone who constantly had belated ideas which were not edited into the proper time frame, but were added willy nilly as they occurred to the author.

The book started reasonably well with some factual data about the murder of Tutankhamen and his mummification, followed by some insights into Howard Carter's early experiences in Egypt and his relationship with Lord Carnarvon who financed the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb.

However there was a distinct lack of punctuation, especially commas, which made comprehension something of a challenge, coupled with abrupt changes of scene and subject from one line to the next without any break, so that in one sentence Carter would be smoking a cigarette and in the next the queen would be talking. Not Queen Alexandra or Queen Mary, but Tutankhamen’s queen who, with her husband and retinue was in some celestial sphere plotting to stop the excavation of the Tutankhamen’s tomb.

Later we have Lord Carnarvon in a motor vehicle accident and it transpired that this was the reason he went to Egypt in the first place; he had been badly injured and needed a new hobby to replace his hunting and driving fast cars. I found it puzzling that it was so far into the book when he had already figured large in the story.

Later, Carter toured America to great accolades - then back to the celestials and Pharaoh Horemhab dressed as an Arab, in the Cairo market place with a gun, shooting a British general. Back to the celestial sphere where Tutankhamen was getting desperate, after which we hopped on board the ship which was taking Howard Carter to America for his lecture tour. Why was this placed after the description of the tour itself? Surely it should have preceded it.

This is where I gave up; the whole thing was becoming too absurd. What started out as a fairly factual account of the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb had become a roaring farce with two warring camps of the undead from 3,000 years ago doing their best to get rid of each other and manipulate the Egyptian government, with Horemheb trying to have Tutankhamen’s tomb dismantled and Tutankhamen and his retinue trying to force them to leave the tomb undisturbed as the Pharaoh did not what his body exposed to the public gaze; a sentiment which I can quite understand.

And all the way through the book the question at the back of my mind was - why didn’t Howard Carter marry Dorothy???????… (meer)