This is a very good example of the adventure genre and is up there amongst the best of them as it is tense, unpredictable and comprehensible. (I’ve read quite a few in this fiction category that miss out on all three of these attributes!). Set mainly in Egypt with main character Jack Goodrich, a university professor , ex- SAS, who is invited to assess the worth of an ancient sword – so far, so predictable but it all takes a more shocking tone when a trail of death results and it becomes apparent he is not the only one interested. An extremist religious group want to claim it as a symbol of the rightfulness of them grabbing power. Easterman does well not to portray them as cartoon villains but as very scary people – suicide missions involving women and children and even tracking a grieving Goodrich to Scotland. The novel provides an eye-opening testament to the dangers of religious extremism, of how the security forces might not always be trustworthy and how another major disaster (here the levelling of the Pyramids) may not be too far away. I found it gripping suggesting Easterman has a real talent for writing this kind of fiction.