The Ape Who Guards the Balance

by Elizabeth Peters Book 10 in the Amelia Peabody series.

First published 1998

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In the 1906–07 season, Ramses, Nefret and David acquire an exceptionally fine papyrus of the Book of the Dead in Cairo. Its provenance points toward an organised antiquities operation, and the family’s attempt to trace it draws them into a network involving grave robbers, secretive collectors and people living at the margins of respectable society.

The investigation becomes increasingly violent as the Emersons uncover links between stolen objects and a remorseless killer. Amelia must coordinate the family’s divided inquiries while protecting those who possess fragments of the truth, but the case ultimately exacts a personal cost that changes the household as well as the direction of the excavation.