In the autumn of 1915, Cairo is crowded with troops, intelligence officers and wartime opportunists, while tomb robbers exploit the disruption to raid archaeological sites. Seeking a quieter season in Luxor, Amelia and Emerson instead discover the recent body of a murdered man inside an ancient tomb.
The killing points toward a larger scheme involving stolen antiquities and one of Amelia’s most dangerous adversaries. As the family follows clues between Cairo and the excavation, the possibility of an important historical discovery becomes inseparable from the identity of the victim and the wartime interests of those attempting to suppress the evidence.