EGYPT IS UNDER ATTACK. Pharaoh Tamose lies mortally wounded. The ancient city of Luxor is surrounded, All seems lost. Taita prepares for the enemy's final, fatal push. The ex-slave, now general of Tamose's armies, is never more ingenious than when all hope is dashed. And this is Egypt's most desperate hour. With the timely arrival of an old ally, the tide is turned and the Egyptian army feasts upon its retreating foe. But upon his victorious return to Luxor, Taita is seized and branded a traitor. Tamose is dead and a poisonous new era has begun. The new Pharaoh has risen. Pharaoh Utteric is young, weak and cruel, and threatened by Taita's influence within the palace - especially his friendship with Utteric's younger and worthier brother, Ramases. With Taita's imprisonment, Ramases is forced to make a choice: help Taita escape and forsake his brother, or remain silent and condone Utteric's tyranny. To a good man like Ramases, there is no choice. Taita must be set free, Utteric must be stopped and Egypt must be reclaimed.
'Best historical novelist - I say Wilbur Smith Stephen King
'No one does adventure quite like Smith' Daily Mirror
Praise for the EGYPTIAN series:
'Superlatively evocative...Smith's descriptions hardly falter over 500 pages and [River God] has relentless momentum' Observer
'Big, brave and blockbusting ... brilliantly detailed descriptions of life on the Nile' Mail On Sunday
'Grand mythical material... the set pieces are fabulous' Times Literary Supplement
'High adventure ... there is never a lull in his majestic novel overflowing with passion, rage, treachery, barbarism, prolonged excitement and endless passages of sheer, exquisite colour' The Washington Post
'A rich, compelling look back in time [to] when history and myth intermingled' San Francisco Chronicle
'A grand tale of intrigue, deception, true love and exile' Denver Post
'An epic of sex, death and intrigue in the Valley of the Kings ... richly written ... packs in the action ... excellent' Weekend Telegraph
Author
About Wilbur Smith
Wilbur Smith was born in Central Africa in 1933. He was educated at Michaelhouse and Rhodes University. He became a full-time writer in 1964 after the successful publication of When the Lion Feeds, and has since written nearly thirty novels, all meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His books are now translated into twenty-six languages.
Wilbur Smith lives in London and continues to have an abiding concern for the peoples and wildlife of his native continent, an interest strongly reflected in his novels.
