The Dead of Egypt

David Jack Smith
Works of: Fiction
Publisher(s): Red Dagger Books

What if….
Before Agatha sold her first murder mystery, young Aggi solved her first murder.

CAIRO, 1909. A CITY ON THE EDGE

Deep in the Būlāq district, as the noon call to prayer echoes over Cairo, a young boy is murdered – the fifth in a month. And Inspector Ezra Hatem of the Cairo police is under intense pressure to catch a killer in a city on the brink of communal violence.

Eighteen-year-old Agatha Artemis Carlyle has accompanied her mother to Egypt to escape the damp of an English winter.

Though Lydia Carlyle has another purpose: to find a suitable husband for her radical daughter. But Aggi – radical suffragette, budding mystery author, trained in jiu-jitsu – is resolutely not in want of a husband.

When a shocking murder at their hotel collides with Ezra’s investigation, the coolly logical Aggi catches the inspector’s attention. Impressed by her sharp deductive mind, he enlists her help.

As the evidence mounts and the connected murder cases are solved, Aggi is forced to confront a killer she desperately wanted to believe innocent.

But… what began in the heat and dust of Egypt pursues Aggi back to England aboard the luxurious l’Athènes à Paris Rapide train. And nothing is as safe or as civilized as it seems as Aggi trapped on a train with a heartless killer.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT YOUNG AGGI.

‘Oh, Aggi! Of course you will marry. And marry well. And have lots of children. Unlike the silly women of Lesbos. Now extinct.’
Mrs Lydia Carlyle, mother of Miss A.A. Carlyle.

‘If the infliction of harm upon one’s person is deemed inevitable, Miss Carlyle, one should employ deadly action: instantly, effectively, and with maximum violence.’
Mr Barton-Wright, inventor of Bartitsu.

‘My… but the Carlyle girl is really quite lovely; très magnifique, is she not, Mr Singha?’
Mlle. Persephone Moreau, une touriste française.

‘I would have dispatched that murderous blighter straight off the bat, if Miss Carlyle hadn’t leapt upon me like a Bengal man-eater.’
Captain Julius Saxony, Grenadier Guards.

‘How wily you are, Lydia. I expect your Agatha is quite pleased with young Musgrave’s interest?’
Lady Agnes Burgoyne, British aristocrat.

‘I submit, I submit. Stop bending my arm. Dear God, please, please stop, Miss Carlyle.’
Mr D. A. Singha, London Correspondent, India Times.

‘They’re a mob, Miss Carlyle. The hoi oligoi may be very mannered in their fineries, but they’re a far more dangerous mob than the hoi polloi.’
Inspector Ezra Hatem, Cairo Police.

‘Oh, I say, that is rather splendid. Land of sand and antiquities. I like that, Miss Carlyle.’
Charles Musgrave, heir to Lord Musgrave.