All hail the jubilant return of the redoubtable Amelia Peabody! Together with her sexy yet irascible husband, Radcliffe Emerson; their handsome but wily heir, Ramses; Ramses' inscrutably elegant friend David; and the elder Emersons' ward: beautiful, trouble-seeking Nefret Forth -- Edwardian Egypt may never be the same. The 1907 archaeological season in Egypt holds little promise for Amelia Peabody. But when an extraordinary papyrus of the Book of the Dead falls into the young people's hands, can trouble be far behind? It soon appears in the form of Sethos, the dastardly Master Criminal himself, but not before various murders and mayhem have turned the 1907 season from dull to deadly!