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"Exciting and enjoyable stand alone work"

As a captain in the English army Neville Hawthorne was stationed in Egypt where he developed a passion for archeology. A cousin of Prince Albert told him about the legend of the Valley of the Dust, the burial place of the pharaoh Neferankhotep, beloved of the gods who protect the chamber from grave robbers. Neville almost found the pharaoh's burial place but the Protectors of the Pharaoh stopped him. However, he managed to get directions to the pharaoh's resting place.

Years later he mounts an expedition to find the Valley of the Dust accompanied by his niece. His guide, Eddie an Englishmen who served with him in the army and stayed to marry an Islamic woman, gets them to the location after dealing with rival archeologists and a dangerous Bedouin tribe. When they enter the valley, they are sealed in by the Protectors of the Pharaoh. They befriend an Egyptian deity and are judged by the Pharaoh as well as other deities in the Egyptian Parthenon. If they pass they can stay in paradise or return to their own world but if they fail, they suffer the Pharaoh's punishment.

The pantheon of the gods of ancient Egypt are alive and thriving in the tomb of Neferankhotep but they are deities who understand the foibles of humanity and are merciful even to those who don't deserve it. The characters, even the villains, are changed by their ordeal and become better people. THE BURIED PYRAMID starts off as a Lara Croft movie and then transforms into a fantasy novel. Jane Lindskold has written an exciting and enjoyable stand alone work with characters that are heroically flawed.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted April 30, 2004

Plucky young Jenny Benet, a recently orphaned American girl who was raised on the Wild West frontier and educated at a Boston finishing school, has come to Egypt in company with her uncle Neville Hawthorne, a prominent British archaeologist. They're part of a team investigating the legendary Buried Pyramid, the tomb of the pharaoh Neferankhotep -- who may also have been Moses the Lawgiver.

But they're not the only ones interested in the site. Another party, led by the opulent and treacherous Lady Audrey Cheshire, is shadowing theirs. Someone who signs himself "The Sphinx" has been sending threatening letters -- written entirely in hieroglyphics. In Egypt, an ancient and shadowy organization seems determined to keep the tomb from being discovered.

But mortals may not be all that stands in their way.

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