Elizabeth Peters's unforgettable heroine Amelia Peabody makes her first appearance in this clever mystery. Amelia receives a rather large inheritance and decides to use it for travel. On her way through Rome to Egypt, she meets Evelyn Barton-Forbes, a young woman abandoned by her lover and left with no means of support. Amelia promptly takes Evelyn under her wing, insisting that the young lady accompany her to Egypt, where Amelia plans to indulge her passion for Egyptology. When Evelyn becomes the target of an aborted kidnapping and the focus of a series of suspicious accidents and mysterious visitations, Amelia becomes convinced of a plot to harm her young friend. Like any self-respecting sleuth, Amelia sets out to discover who is behind it all. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Author Barbara Mertz was born in Canton, Illinois on September 29, 1927. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Egyptology from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in 1952. Her first three works were non-fiction titles dealing with topics in her field of study. These titles, "Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs," "Red Land, Black Land" and "Two Thousand Years in Rome" were written using her true name. She also writes novels under the pseudonymns Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters. She is the author of the Amelia Peabody series, the Vicky Bliss series, and the Jacqueline Kirby series. In 1989, she won an Agatha for Naked Once More.

(Bowker Author Biography) Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.