Cairo. December 1917.
Following a tip-off from notorious spy Fredrick Fredricks, Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane of British Intelligence find themselves in the hustle and bustle of Egypt. But ancient mummies aren’t the only bodies buried in the tombs of Cairo.
When a young French archeologist is found dead in a tomb in the desert with his head bashed in, and an undercover British agent goes missing, the threat moves closer to home.
As they dig deeper, soon Fiona and Kitty uncover a treasure trove of suspects, including competing excavators, jealous husbands, secret lovers, and belligerent spies! Fiona wonders if the notorious
Fredrick Fredricks could be behind the murders? Or is the plot even more sinister?
One thing is clear – If Fiona and Kitty can’t catch the killer, they might end up sharing a sarcophagus with Nefertiti.
With humor as dry as the Arabian desert, and pacing as fast as a spitting camel, Fiona and Kitty are back in another sparkling adventure, this time in WW1 Egypt.
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Kelly Oliver is the award-winning, bestselling author of three mysteries series: The Jessica James Mysteries, The Pet Detective Mysteries, and the historical cozies The Fiona Figg Mysteries, set in
WW1. She is also the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She is bringing new titles in the Fiona Figg series to Boldwood, the first of
which, Chaos in Carnegie Hall, was published in November 2022.
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My thoughts: we’re in British occupied Egypt in 1917, Lord Caernarvon, Howard Carter, T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and Gertrude Bell are all present when Kitty and Fiona arrive (with chauffeur/chaperone Clifford and pooch Poppy in tow). They’re on the trail of the ever annoying Frederick Fredericks and a missing British agent.
The army is in town, with soldiers travelling back and forth to the Western Front, unlike WW2 where fighting took place in North Africa (my great-uncle was a Captain of a tank at the time), there’s no fighting in Egypt but as a British territory, there’s certainly a lot of war related activity. So of course there are spies, and undercover Germans (officially they’d been expelled from the country) as well as unhappy natives who wanted all of the Europeans gone. Then there’s the archaeologists and crooks stealing ancient artifacts to either sell on the black market or send home to museums.
With all this going on, Fiona and Kitty need to locate the agent, arrest Fredericks, hunt down black market smugglers, ensure the Suez Canal is in one piece, oh and Fiona would quite like to find Archie too. Easy. Armed with their collection of costumes, assistance from the local British intelligence bureau, Kitty’s array of skills (definitely not learnt in a French boarding school) and Fiona’s nose for trouble, they’ll be done in no time. Just a few balls, murders and kidnappings first.
It’s more like chaos in Cairo, as a French archeologist is murdered, they both get kidnapped several times, a British agent is poisoned, Fredericks appears and disappears, they hob nob with the local British celebrities and functionaries, and Fiona eats a lot of toast (local cuisine not suiting her). Tremendous fun and a bit silly, even with a war raging away in the background, Fiona even gets to dig out her beard and mustache collection.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own .
ramblingmads 