This is Christie's only historical mystery, set on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes in Ancient Egypt (approx. 2000 B.C.) Christie was inspired by letters discovered as part of an expedition sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. However, the essential elements of the mystery, as Christie notes herself, could have been set in any time and place. Renisenb returns to her father's house soon after her young husband died, thinking little has changed. But when her father Imhotep returns from a business trip, he brings back a new, young concubine, as young as Renisenb herself. When Imhotep has to leave once again to take care of his far-flung estates, the concubine Nofret stirs up trouble and ends up at the bottom of a cliff. But that's not the last death to come to the household...