In 523 BC, the Persian pharaoh Cambyses dispatched an army across Egypt's western desert to destroy the oracle at Siwa. Legend has it that his army was overwhelmed by
a sandstorm and lost for ever...
Two and a half millennia later a mutilated corpse is washed up on the banks of the Nile at Luxor, an antiques dealer is savagely murdered in Cairo, and a British archaeologist is found dead at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara.
The incidents appear unconnected, but Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police is suspicious. As is the archaeologist's daughter, Tara Mullray. Stumbling on a curious hieroglyphic fragment, their search for the truth suddenly becomes a dangerous race against time that leads deep into the desert's unforgiving heart and to one of the great mysteries of the ancient world...