Of all the thieves through the ages, far and away the most accomplished were those in ancient Egypt. No pikers, they went after treasure: Gold, silver, gems. Nor did they have far to look. However well hidden, they found it. Pyramids housing pharaohs and their wealth for the next world were filled with curses and booby traps.
Pharaoh by David Gibbins 367pp, 2013 Headline paperback Available at Asia Books and leading bookshops, 625 baht
The robbers ignored the former and circumvented the latter, stripping the burial chambers of their valuables. Unable to prevent this, the powers-that-be gave up on scenic pyramids and went in for far distant, subterranean mausoleums. But no sooner was the body mummified and placed in a sarcophagus than the tomb raiders were doing their dirty work at the hidden site.
Invaded from east and west, the great empire crashed. There to pick up many of the pieces were the British. Even before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, they were sending artefacts to the British Museum. Alas sailing ships were at the mercy of the weather, many sinking in the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
Contemporary British author David Gibbins uses one such sinking as the nail on which to hang the plot of his historical fiction novel Pharaoh. The protagonists are two archaeologists _ Jack is British, Costas Greek. Their submersible brings up the sarcophagus of a controversial pharaoh.
Three-and-a-half millennia earlier, Pharaoh Akhenaten renounced the cult worship (e.g. of crocodiles) of the priests, in favour of a single deity _ Amun-Ra, the Sun God. He sought proof in the Sudanese desert. Successful, he founded "The City of Light". Jack and Costas follow in his footsteps.
While doing so, they find evidence of the 19th century war between the British and Mahdi, a Muslim fanatic who became ruler of an area the size of France. Khartoum was under siege and with it the governor-general of the Sudan, General Charles Gordon.
Like the pharaoh of old he was controversial. "Chinese" Gordon, given the nickname for his forcefulness in putting down the Taiping Rebellion, is discussed at length by his colleagues. They agree that he had a martyr complex, which was borne out when the Dervishes killed and decapitated him when they stormed the duty. It took a dozen years for the British under Kitcher to take their revenge.
As for our modern archaeological heroes, Jack carries out his mission. The fate of Costas is ambiguous.
What ties the two historical figures, apart from location, is tenuous. Yet each is well-researched and interest-holding.
Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark 338pp, 2013 Simon & Schuster paperback Available at Asia Books and leading bookshops, 550 baht
Many chapters in store
Reviewing as many as I do, I've noticed that books are changing in form and, consequently, in substance. They are becoming multi-chaptered. I'm not certain who started the trend, but I think it was James Patterson. In centuries past Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo et al gave us only a handful of chapters per novel.
No longer. Contemporary authors are clearly in competition for the number of chapters they can divide their full-length stories into. Patterson leads the pack with chapters numbering into the triple digits. Other scribes are scrambling to catch up. In Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, under review, Mary Higgins Clark notches up 98 chapters plus a prologue and an epilogue. Each chapter may have information in the heading about the venue, time, date and/or the highlights or the next few pages. Most often there's just the chronological number. Multi-chapters induce the writers to goose the plots along. No more lengthy explanations, analyses, climaxes. They are ideal halting places for people with short attention spans.
Clark is a veteran Yank crime thriller scrivener with more than two-score novels under her belt. Interestingly, she hasn't followed the literary custom of introducing a homicide detective or private eye to carry over. To be sure there are lots of police _ good at their jobs, none outstanding.
She tells a good story, even when the plots aren't altogether original. This time around there's an identity switch, poor brother becomes wealthy brother after a death at sea. He inherits the Long Island family business of high-grade antique furniture.
But will his infant nieces and nephews accept him as their real father as they grow older? Meanwhile he is slowly stripping the business of its most valuable antiques, selling them to private dealers worldwide for millions of dollars, and substituting them with fakes.
The premises insured for $20 million, he has his cronies blow it up. He isn't above murdering people, including relatives, who learn what he's up to. In a nick-of-time race, the good guys try to prevent yet another killing.
More than a few writers who earned their plaudits early in their careers ran out of steam. Mary Higgins Clark is still going strong. She has successfully adapted to the multi-chapter trend. She comments that she gets her ideas from stores. As good a place as any. Better than most.
