"Do you want to know who you really are?  Be in Cairo in a fortnight, on 28 April 1951" read the mysterious letter.  Successful American lawyer Mark Wilder cannot resist, and combines some time off with what he thinks might be a fun sightseeing tour, but probably a wild goose chase.  Instead he is dropped into a maelstrom of secrets and conspiracies to protect an ancient treasure.

If you are a fan of Christian Jacq’s absorbing novels set in Ancient Egypt then you will probably be intrigued that he has branched out into a currently popular fiction sub-genre.   If you are also a fan of novels like  The Da Vinci Code,  then you will be settling down for another helping of ancient mysteries and modern conspiracies.   As a keen reader of the former but not the latter I was intrigued and, although I am never going to seek out this type of thing, I was impressed by what he did with it.  This novel is set against the backdrop of Cairo under Farouk, and Wilder gets himself embroiled in the political situation which was well researched, and made fascinating reading.  Offsetting the realism of a country in trouble was the supernatural aspect, complete with strange artifacts from the distant past, visions and paranormal beings dispensing wisdom and/or death.  This was certainly exciting, a chase to find the lost treasure, beat the baddies (including the CIA and local police) and restore order to Egypt.  Jacq can pace a book well, and interweaves a period not often written about with a popular plot device.